


The Haunting of Hext House

by BuggreAlleThis



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Anxious Aziraphale (Good Omens), Bee-keeping, Denial, Didn't Know They Were Dating, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gematria, Haunted Houses, Heaven is Terrible (Good Omens), Hijinks & Shenanigans, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Incantation Bowls, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mental Instability, Mutual Pining, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Canon, Protective Aziraphale (Good Omens), Protective Crowley (Good Omens), Recovery, Repression, Roommates, South Downs Cottage (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:13:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21735850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BuggreAlleThis/pseuds/BuggreAlleThis
Summary: After the Apocalypse, Crowley and Aziraphale have to work through millennia of fear, abuse, and repression, as well as the trauma of the Apocalypse, their attempted executions, and the new, terrifying freedom which neither of them has ever experienced.Or they could deny there's any need to unpack all of that, buy a house on a whim, and run away to the South Downs, where Crowley covets his neighbour's greenhouse and comes up with a plot to make the couple next-door move out.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 358
Kudos: 391
Collections: Hurt Aziraphale





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> To be honest, given the impending apocalypse the UK will almost certainly undergo on Thursday, I just really needed to write a fic where Crowley bullies a gammon.
> 
> This story follows on from my fic [The Relief of Hopelessness](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19373452); reading that first isn't essential though, being a canon-set fic, it just provides the background for a couple of lines.

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream.

Aziraphale did not dream, because he did not sleep. He’d been unconscious rather more times than was quite seemly for an angel of his rank – most recently that very morning, brought down by a blow with a crowbar that would have killed a human – but he had not willingly _slept_ , which was, for him, an important distinction.

Dancing, for instance, was Not The Done Thing, for angels. They didn’t feel the need. Being caught dancing would have marked him out as almost unforgivably queer, but he doubted it would have appeared on any official forms as a reason for a given punishment.

But sleeping, on the other hand… “Stay awake, for you do not know when the master of the house will come” – that was the standing order. Gabriel liked to pop in on him when Aziraphale least expected it, in the hope of catching him out in the middle of something really egregious, and Aziraphale knew that sleeping would count as such.

Especially when he’d been demoted for his lack of vigilance in the Garden.

So whenever Crowley went on about how much he enjoyed sleeping, what a relief it was to allow one’s mind to fall still, to fall into a warm, forgiving darkness – whenever Crowley went on about how _restful_ it was, how clear his head was once he’d properly woken up, how much more stable his moods were after a good long nap – Aziraphale looked up to Heaven, thought of his two remaining wings, and gave some rote answer about the watchman and the city.

He could sleep, now.

If he wanted to.

He didn’t. For in that sleep what dreams may come…

No, it was all right. _He_ was all right. Aziraphale snatched whatever moments of unreality he could, from novels and stories, the opera and the theatre, art and daydreams. Denial. It had kept him sane thus far.

Besides, it wouldn’t be safe for both of them to sleep, and Crowley was already nodding in his chair before they finished their bottle of champagne in the Ritz. Aziraphale felt the warm, heavy bloom of protectiveness in his chest. The familiarity of the sensation was a comfort to him – not that he needed comforting! They were free! He had never been so relieved, so happy, in all his existence.

So. Not a comfort. A delight, instead – to pay for the meal, to guide Crowley into a taxi, to bring him back to his flat. Aziraphale opened the door to it now like an old hand, like he’d been there a thousand times. Not for the first time just the night before.

Aziraphale had cleaned up the holy water remnants, and now all the evidence of Saturday were the empty bottles and glasses on the coffee table. A little potted plant with white flowers. He couldn’t bear to look at the sofa, lest pure embarrassment discorporate him for the second time in two days.

He had thought they were going to die. He had thought he’d gone mad with the fear of it. He’d started sweating blood. And Crowley…

“Where do you sleep, my dear?” Aziraphale said, and Crowley indicated the direction with a graceless nod of his head.

“M’m fine.”

“You are quite clearly exhausted. _Sleep._ It’s all right now. I won’t leave. I’ll keep watch.”

Crowley shivered against him, and let his chin fall to rest against his chest. He dropped down onto the bed, asleep before his head hit the pillow. Aziraphale had read those words many times but had never seen it in the flesh before.

He unlaced Crowley’s shoes reverently. Took his time removing them. He didn’t want to wake him. He placed them neatly by the bed, and wondered about whether he ought to remove Crowley’s socks as well. Probably best not. He didn’t want his feet to get cold.

Demons can change every part of their body except for their feet. As far as he knew, Crowley was the only one who had ever even made a dent in that particular limitation; he tended to save energy by making them look like shoes, rather than disguising them entirely. Aziraphale remembered smoothing Balm of Gilead onto the scaled soles of those feet in 1941.

He’d kept Crowley’s socks on, even in the bathtub. Just in case the feet within were too straight, too smooth. Just in case they’d changed, the more time an angel wore the body instead of a demon.

The thought of Hell and its bathtub made him stare at the wall for a long time. He didn’t realise he was wringing his hands until the skin of his little finger was raw underneath his signet ring.

He looked at it in confusion. It was a solid hand. Not shivering in and out of sight, like it had yesterday. It was solid, he told himself. And warm.

That was what he’d been thinking about! How to keep Crowley warm while he slept. Crowley hadn’t moved at all, so leaden was his exhaustion. It made Aziraphale’s heart ache.

Rather than conjuring a blanket out of nothing, he spent a miracle to bring the duvet out from under Crowley without waking him. He closed the blinds. He removed Crowley’s sunglasses, and placed them carefully on the sleek, black-metal bedside table. They were Crowley’s shield. They, and he, now.

He tiptoed out of the room; standing there _looming_ like a vampire felt impossible. Not that Crowley would have any trouble dealing with a vampire… No, it turned out that that was another subject he really ought to avoid.

The doors in the flat weren’t _normal_ doors. They were swinging planes of concrete, cold and impersonal and dark. On the edge of his mind there was terror, like a sound too high-pitched for his human ears.

Crowley’s flat was so _empty_. He had seen it all last night, and there was now nothing new to distract himself.

He spoke to the plants. Told them all about what had happened. That helped, he thought. It made his heart beat less quickly, and the plants calmed down as well. So he told them again. And again. The damp, sulphurous smell of Hell. His fear. The worry that the holy water would dissolve Crowley’s body and leave him there, trapped, incorporeal, at the mercy of those sadistic, brutish, _evil_ beings. Like Crowley had been. Like his poor Crowley had been.

(It took the plants until the second re-telling to realise whom the kind angel was referring to, and another before they were all willing to believe it could be the same demon they knew).

He was growing upset again. He could feel it, in his hands, like caught electricity. That wouldn’t do. He needed to be alert. He needed to protect Crowley.

He told the plants that he would be back with water later. He checked Crowley’s room, to make sure the demon was still there. He tidied the detritus of their evening away. He found a concealed bookshelf beneath the television set: mostly novels, a few books on astronomy or gardening. Organised alphabetically, the animal, he thought fondly. He sat cross-legged on the floor and put a more intuitive and useful system in place.

He hated this place. The gloominess made him think of Hell, he skittered away from that thought, and the emptiness of Heaven. And the thought of that was even worse. His stomach gave a horrible lurch, and he felt dizzy as he tried to hide from whatever emotion was about to smother him.

There was nothing here to _fiddle_ with. He made cup after cup of tea, just to give his hands something to do, until the caffeine nauseated him and made his heart patter like a drum solo. He needed _distraction_. A crossword, a puzzle, _anything_. Something to occupy his mind. Something that he could solve, something to give his frantic, anxious brain purpose while he guarded Crowley.

Something to keep him from thinking about everything else.

*

When Crowley opened his eyes and turned on the lights with a gesture, the first things he saw were the flowers. A simple glass vase, in which there was a bouquet of myrtle branches and Queen Anne’s Lace, pure white and deep, bright green against the dark grey.

He stared at them for a long time, and could not remember how they had come to be there.

He stretched. He heard several clicks all the way down his body. He’d fallen asleep wearing his clothes, so he groped around his jacket pockets until he found his phone.

It was the 2nd of September.

Crowley sat up and rubbed absently at his nose. The last thing he properly remembered was drinking with Aziraphale at the Ritz. Vaguely remembered a taxi, and Aziraphale guiding him towards the bedroom. Had he left the flowers?

He quick-dialled Aziraphale, and with every micro-second that Aziraphale didn’t answer, his heart beat faster.

After two he was on his feet. After three he was out of the bedroom, snapping shoes onto his feet. At four, he was in the room which could charitably have been called his _living room_ , staring in astonishment through to his office.

Aziraphale wasn’t answering the bookshop phone because he wasn’t in the bookshop. He was sitting in Crowley’s chair (throne), at Crowley’s desk, tapping away at Crowley’s 16-inch, space-grey MacBook Pro.

Fear had blown the cobwebs of sleep from his mind; he noticed that, engrossed as he was, Aziraphale nearly jumped out of his skin in fright when he heard Crowley push open the bedroom door.

Then he was beaming. His face shone like a star. “Hello!” Aziraphale cried. “You’re awake!”

“Yeah. Feel better now.” Crowley pointedly raised an eyebrow at the army of empty mugs on his porphyry desktop. “Have you been here this whole time?”

“Of course! I said I’d stay here, so that you could sleep without worrying.” Aziraphale’s smile had a hint of the manic to it.

“So… you’ve not been back to your shop?”

Aziraphale looked back at the laptop screen. “Couldn’t leave you alone. And too much to do here! I’ve installed Linux on your computer, I hope you don’t mind. I _tried_ CP/M but it just absolutely refused; I found an emulator once I’d got onto _the Internet_ but it was only for Windows, and then I realised that this was an _Apple –_ I thought that this was something you’d put on it, I didn’t know it was a whole company! It’s very big apparently, I knew you must be behind it somehow. But my dear, you must buy a new one. This one doesn’t have anywhere for the floppy discs.”

“Satan save me. That’s a brand new Macbook Pro, Aziraphale, of course it’s not going to have anywhere for a floppy disc. What do you even have on floppies anyway?”

“All my records…”

Crowley took in Aziraphale’s woebegone face and sighed. “There’ll be some way of transferring the data. Onto your own laptop. What’s Linux?"

“It’s just like Unix,” said Aziraphale.

Crowley gave up. He shouldn’t have been surprised that Aziraphale would have been able to work it. He wasn’t _stupid_ , after all, about most things, just a Luddite. Systems had become more and more intuitive, and Aziraphale had probably found a way to make it run on whatever pared-back system he was used to. The angel had learnt computing from books – extraordinarily thick, dry books, a whole shelf of them under the machine – on an ancient Amstrad PCW bought long before Crowley had introduced Alan Sugar to some BBC friends. He’d never replaced it, and it had chugged along, with various screams of protest, for the last thirty-five years, while Crowley replaced his with whatever machine was most expensive after jumping a release day queue. Given a week in Crowley’s flat, with no Crowley to speak to… “And you got onto the Internet?”

“Yes! It’s quite marvellous. There are so many rare book catalogues there, once you know where to look. And you can read the newspaper, or play chess. I can understand why you badgered me about it for so long.”

Crowley felt himself smiling. This was one of the things he loved best about the angel. Aziraphale always found some way to surprise him, just when he thought he knew he through and through. “And you’ve got it to work? Just through trial and error?”

“Trial and error and experience, my dear. And you can buy things! Anything, not just books! I ordered some flowers – I wanted there to be something nice for you, when you woke up – did you see them?”

Crowley conjured another chair, then sat down next to Aziraphale. “I did. They were lovely.” He waited for Aziraphale to smile before he continued. “You should have woken me.”

“But you were tired.”

“Yes. But I didn’t need to sleep for a week. Not with you on your own.”

“I’ve been fine. I’m sorry I took the computer out of the box, only I’d read all your books and… well, the television might have been loud. Might have woken you up.”

“Right,” Crowley said. He felt cold – like there was a lump of ice in his stomach, spreading its chill under his skin. “Don’t worry about the laptop. Have it, if you’ve got it working the way you want.”

“Oh, thank you! It’s all right, I can bring it back to its factory settings now, it’s far too flash for me to use every day! How they’ve come on! It took a while to get used to it, but it’s so fast! And it can show pictures! Absolutely amazing.”

“Yeah.” Crowley’s level of anxiety had risen with every audible exclamation point. “Aziraphale… have you really not been back home? To the shop, I mean?”

Aziraphale _looked_ at him. “Where else would home be?” he said, and then in a different voice, “You were asleep. I didn’t want to leave you – you’re so _vulnerable_ , Crowley, really, I just shudder to think of what could have happened all those other times-“

“Yeah, yeah, you said that. Right. Well, we can go over there now.”

Aziraphale looked shifty. “You’ve only just woken up, my dear. Why don’t we get something to eat first?”

“Why don’t you want to go to the bookshop?”

“Wait, before I forget, I need to call up the control box, type in the reset code – it’ll be just the way it was in the box-“

Crowley nearly shouted. Aziraphale was tensed, as though expecting Crowley to shout at him. That was why he didn’t.

Instead, he waited in silence while Aziraphale typed in some lines of code, selected a few options, and then he waited some more when the screen went black.

Aziraphale closed the laptop. “There. Good as new. Like it was never even touched.”

“Like your shop. So. Why don’t you want to go back?”

“It’s silly, really.”

“Okay. That’s fine.”

“It’s not. I really oughtn’t be so silly,” Aziraphale said. He’d begun to twist his fingers again.

Crowley didn’t lose his temper. He didn’t change his voice. “I won’t tell anyone. Better silly and honest. ‘S all right, angel.”

Aziraphale’s face crumpled, just for a second. Then he sighed, and calm settled on it again. “It’s silly, but… I died in there. That’s where I was discorporated.”

Crowley had suspected as much. “In the fire?”

“No – no, I only knew there’d been a fire when you told me.”

Crowley frowned; he hadn't expected that. But at least Aziraphale hadn’t burnt to death… “What happened, then?”

“I used the contact circle. Sergeant Shadwell must have knocked one of the candles over when he left.”

“Shadwell – the Witchfinder?” Crowley said. “Why the heaven was he at your bookshop?”

“I don’t know why he came round. Probably for money. He always comes across some extra expense or two, but normally I ring him. He’s my contact in the Witchfinder Army – you remember them? I thought I ought to keep a close eye on them after all the unpleasantness in the 17th century.”

Crowley rather fancied going back to bed. He’d bring Aziraphale up to speed later. “So. He’d come round to ask you for money?”

“I suspect so. I’d used the circle. Made contact with the Metatron. He’s after your time – he was Enoch, you know, the human that brought up news about Shemhazai and the rest of the Watchers. God apparently took a liking to him, and he’s stayed on as Her official spokesman ever since. Anyway, he said, um. Point wasn’t to avoid the War, you know, but to win it. You were right.”

Aziraphale’s gaze was pinned to the floor. His voice was very quiet.

Had this been about something unimportant, a discussion about whether dolphins were fish or not, Crowley would have crowed and pointed in Aziraphale’s face, demanded some kind of prize or forfeit. Instead he touched Aziraphale’s sleeve with his fingertips.

This brought Aziraphale back to himself; he blinked, and sniffed. “In any case! In any case… They wanted me up there as soon as possible, so they left the gateway open. Probably to make sure I didn’t make a run for it… I rang you. To tell you that I’d found Adam. Um. Sergeant Shadwell must have picked the lock, because suddenly he was in the shop, ranting and raving about how I was in league with the forces of darkness and possessed by a demon and all sorts-“

“Nmh,” managed Crowley.

“Seducing women to do my evil will! I told him how utterly ridiculous that was-“

“Well, yes,” Crowley said bravely.

“- but he simply would not listen to reason. I think he tried to exorcise me, can you believe it? But he’d mixed it up with the rite of excommunication. In any case, I was trying to keep him from stepping into my contact circle, I knew it would kill him. And I ended up stepping into it instead.”

“I didn’t know any of this,” Crowley remarked casually. Nonchalantly. It had been absolutely _ages_ since he’d murdered anyone.

Aziraphale twiddled his watch fob. “Well. It was rather horrible, really. No need to dwell on it. I would have been fine if it had been instantaneous, you know? But they pulled me up, and it was like my- my- my corporation was snagged on something. Or too large to fit through the portal – don’t joke!”

Crowley was confused; joking had been the last thing on his mind. He felt rather sick. “Wasn’t going to. Physical matter, isn’t it? Won’t go through a spiritual gateway.”

“No. No. I don’t know how long it was – probably not even a second. But it’s like when you can see something falling, and you know you won’t reach it in time to catch it, but you have to try-“

“Ngh. Slow-motion.”

“That’s it.” Aziraphale swallowed. “That’s it. In any case, they- or the portal, it might have been an automatic thing, probably was- my corporation blew up. Was suffused with a celestial light which burnt the bonds holding every atom to another, if one wants to be technical… So. In any case. You said that it’s all fine and not burnt down… You went there, even after you said that you were leaving.”

“’Course I did,” Crowley said. “What would there have been for me anywhere else?” The corner of his lip quirked up. “If you’d said no again, I’d have kidnapped you.”

Aziraphale hummed in laughter. “I’d like to see you try, my dear,” he said, and suddenly blushed bright red.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title is, of course, a reference to The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, whence comes the first line of the fic! I also refer to my backstory for Aziraphale, in which he is demoted from Cherub to Principality after the Garden of Eden.
> 
> The reference to demons being unable to change their feet is a common trope in Jewish folklore, and is mentioned in Zohar 3:229b.


	2. Chapter 2

As Crowley had promised, the bookshop looked as though nothing at all had happened. Even the chalk circle was still there under the carpet. Crowley still let Aziraphale check on a hundred little things and scraps and details, while he resolutely refused to breathe or look up from his phone.

It was a relief to leave the place, as it never had been before. Crowley felt a sick, leaden dread as Aziraphale locked the door and tried the handle, unlocked it, locked it, tried the handle, unlocked it, locked it, tried the handle. When the angel finally abandoned the blessed door, with a last look over his shoulder, Crowley linked his arm through Aziraphale’s, without a word as he hadn’t for centuries.

Aziraphale jerked in surprise. His forearm was as hard as iron. But he didn’t pull it away. He did look up to Heaven, probably out of habit, and then gave a little wiggle of his shoulders as he realised what he’d done. Shaking his feathers, Crowley thought helplessly.

His forearm was still tensed, but then Aziraphale stepped close to Crowley, and placed his hand on Crowley’s wrist to anchor it.

“Japanese,” Crowley said. That would help. Aziraphale liked the dim lightning and the quiet and the ritual and the set phrases and the complicated etiquette, and Crowley liked the plum wine. “Where’s the closest?”

“It’s not the closest, but I know one that’s absolutely lovely, and only a five minute walk. Not a chain, and they have an excellent selection of drinks,” Aziraphale said. “They have that plum wine you like.”

“Perfect. Lead the way.”

The restaurant suited their mood, their rubbed-raw, fragile souls. They stepped out of the blazing September heat and sunlight into a dark, air-conditioned coolness. Aziraphale greeted someone in Japanese, exchanged a few pleasantries, and led Crowley to a particularly dim booth.

“That’s better,” he said in a low voice, with a wriggle of visible relaxation. “ _Were it not for shadows, there would be no beauty_.”

“Nice and quiet,” Crowley agreed. Even the short walk amidst the press of Londoners and tourists had been like nails in his nerve-endings. He thought for a moment that he’d like to go for a long drive in the country, with no other cars, before he realised that he’d have to go on the M25 to get there. “There’s too many people outside. Fuck knows what it’s like for you, with them all... _pressing._ ”

“Rather loud,” Aziraphale said, picking up the lacquered chopsticks and placing them on the rest again. “Rather… They make me feel a little keyed-up. But we’ll be all right. We’re _free_ now, my dear. We don’t have to worry anymore.”

To Crowley, it sounded more like a plea than reassurance.

“I need to get out of the city,” he said, speaking without thinking. “Not forever. Just… Just to clear my head. Just need somewhere quiet.”

Aziraphale was staring at him, and even in the dimness and the shadows his eyes glittered like stars. _Third time’s the charm,_ Crowley thought. “Come with me.”

*

“The exterior’s Grade 2 listed, if you wanted to do much in the way of renovation. But there’s already a modern kitchen and bathroom, and the charm of the place really is in the period details,” the estate agent said as she unlocked the oak and lead door.

Crowley looked up at the stone and thatch of the north façade. A riot of roses grew all over the right side of the building and had been ruthlessly trimmed back on the left, leaving the stone exposed. “What if we wanted to buy both sides, join it together as a single house again?”

“I’m afraid the eastern unit isn’t for sale at the moment.”

“It’s such a shame,” said Aziraphale. “Why split such a lovely house?”

“Because instead of one house for three million you can sell two for two,” said Crowley. “And they’ll get sold quicker. Isn’t that right?”

“This side has the advantage of the original door,” said the estate agent airily.

“It’s all right, my dear,” Aziraphale said, _sotto voce._ “We can wait. We’ve plenty of time.”

Crowley smiled back at him. Aziraphale was so much more optimistic now – ever since that Japanese lunch. Suddenly, all at once, Aziraphale was _happy._

It was like the Ritz again. Crowley had been dog-tired, bone-tired, stone-tired, tendon-torn _exhausted_ , and Aziraphale had been as bubbly as the champagne. Gleeful by the success of their escape, delighted by everything in the world.

And now, ever since Crowley had essentially asked him to run away to the country with him, and – more importantly – ever since he’d been able to give a clear, enthusiastic, uncomplicated _yes_ , he’d been relaxed and calm and happy. In the Japanese restaurant he’d glowed so much the chef had come out to see what was happening. For the last fortnight, people had been unable to look away from him in the street. For a fortnight they’d been looking at houses all over the south of England by day, complete with picnics and visits to country houses as and when the opportunity presented itself, and going to the opera or the theatre or the cinema every night, followed by a restaurant and drinking until the bars closed.

And through it all, Aziraphale had been so tender, so openly affectionate. He was always smiling at Crowley, topping up his glass, linking arms as they walked. Crowley barely knew what to do in the face of it. They were both free, both safe from heaven and hell, and everything was fine in Aziraphale’s world. The universe was for them to explore without guilt.

It had remained unspoken that they would do it together. Crowley remembered the fire too well to leave Aziraphale’s side willingly, and reasoned that Aziraphale would politely hint if he wanted him to sod off. The fact that Aziraphale had stayed in his flat for more than a week while he slept suggested to him that Aziraphale had something of the same buried anxiety that he did.

Keyword being _buried_. Crowley wondered when it was all going to hit him.

It wouldn’t have been accurate to say that Crowley was dreading it, but he was clear-eyed and prepared. He was an optimist, which meant that he was enjoying this period for what it was. He was just too wise to know that it would last forever.

No, Aziraphale’s happiness was as brittle as it was bright. The only questions were when he would begin to process everything that had happened over that week in August, and whether what resulted would be a slow collapse or a catastrophic crack.

Heigh ho, thought Anthony Crowley, and stepped inside.

There was no furniture in the house, nothing on the walls. That was another good sign. It meant the owner wanted it sold as quickly as possible.

“My, what a marvellous drawing room!”

“The wainscoting’s all original Victorian.”

“Yes – it reminds me of William’s place. What was it called? The Red House? Arts and Crafts, you know the fellow. Oh, like this banister!”

Crowley left Aziraphale to exclaim over the fireplace and the bits of stained glass and the tiles or whatever. The interior was going to be mostly his, after all. The garden would be Crowley’s. He wandered through the dining room, the kitchen, and a small room with a washing machine and bins in it, out of the back door.

The house came with a good few acres of field at the back, on a sharp incline; the cottage was on the top of a hill, with views of the South Downs to the north and the sea to the south. But the thing that had really drawn Crowley to it was the walled garden. A proper walled garden, divided according to temperature, nearly half an acre of them, with a nine-foot stone wall all around. The wall perpendicular to the western kitchen could be turned into a heated wall with minimal fuss, and the far wall would hold warmth from the sun. A greenhouse to the south, and another wall to the west, even. There was opportunity here for so many different kinds of garden: kitchen, cottage, night-blooming…

But the dividing wall was modern brick, bright red, cutting what had been the original garden in two. A patch of new grass showed Crowley that there must have been a pool or fountain there originally, but had been filled in for the wall. The fuckers.

Upstairs it was even worse. “Oh, Crowley, look at this window seat,” said Aziraphale. “Leaded windows, even. You could sit and read and look out over the sea – and the garden! Oh, it’s just lovely.”

Right. And it had a _lovely_ view into the other garden too. But worse, far worse, was that the eastern house _already had a greenhouse_ , right in the south-eastern corner, breaking up the wall, where it’d get the sun all morning and keep the heat all afternoon.

Crowley stared into the eastern house’s half of the garden. Aziraphale was right. It was only a matter of time before they could buy that as well.

But who knew what the next-door neighbours would do to it in that time? They’d probably tear down the beautiful stone wall to have an unimpeded view of the sea from their kitchen or some bullshit like that. Let the frame of the antique greenhouse rot. Spray the entire place with pesticides or weedkiller. 

No, they _could_ wait a few decades and wait for the neighbours to move out or die.

Or Crowley could indulge in a fun little project and haunt the shit out of the place.

*

They were able to move in by the end of October. Having unlimited funds certainly made buying the place easier. Crowley made an offer the same day they viewed the cottage: asking price plus ten percent, no mortgage, on the condition that the cottage be taken off the market, and that they be able to move in as soon as possible.

He’d sourced a decent conveyancer as soon as Aziraphale agreed to go with him. He paid to make sure he was looked after by a partner, not some bloody intern, and chased her up with phone calls twice a day. He was paying her and the surveyors an obscene amount, after all, and he’d been writing contracts before humans could even _write._ But even he couldn’t speed up the sellers’ solicitors beyond what was humanly possible, and the leaves were all brown and yellow by the time the contracts had been exchanged.

If he was going to haunt the eastern house they needed to be in as soon after the other buyers were in as possible, if not beforehand.

God- _Fuck_ , it felt good to have a purpose again. For too long all he’d been able to think about had been Armageddon, how to stop it, and then how to survive it. Now he could _plot_. Now, there was something to give his fast, voracious brain to chew on. He could obsess over something other than death and destruction.

He revelled in the steps and the complexity of it. Buy the western house, move in, haunt the eastern house, get the rude bastards to move out, take over the whole garden, and make it his own. Their own.

Aziraphale, oblivious to this motive, took the speed on the chin. Apparently he just thought that this was Crowley’s way of doing things. _Too fast_ , etc.

The moving-in on the 28th of October was made much easier by the fact that Aziraphale had no intention of selling the bookshop, and Crowley had no intention of selling his flat. Crowley had no doubt that with time the memories of Ligur and Shadwell and the fire and all the rest of it would fade to something manageable, as long as they didn’t have it shoved in their faces all the time. No, the cottage would be a bolthole. A getaway. A holiday house, really. Even if the holiday lasted a few decades.

He hadn’t thought about the fact that it would all be with Aziraphale. Living with Aziraphale. That was something very new. A shared house, rather than one of them crashing at the other’s.

He’d offered it. Aziraphale to come and live in his flat. But this would be both of theirs. Decorated together. Moulded together.

He wouldn’t mind Aziraphale’s décor choices – cottagecore was in, and the angel was old-fashioned enough to do it all very tasteful Merchant Ivory style _–_ it was his untidiness that was going to cause problems. Crowley would conjure plenty of storage, and make the angel use it properly. He predicted he’d be conjuring most of the furniture. “We’ll replace them with the genuine artefacts when we find what we like,” Aziraphale had said with a beaming smile, and Crowley thought the use of the first person plural was stretching it a bit. Aziraphale objected to conjuring what he needed, saying it was his responsibility to buy from humans to aid them, but for their life together he apparently had no qualms about _Crowley_ creating all their furniture.

However, there was also the fact that Crowley was head over heels in love with the exasperating idiot, and being in such close proximity, for longer than they’d ever dared before… It was going to be torture. The most exquisite, painful torture.

As opposed to being beaten around the face with a cast iron teapot, which was the torture of trying to watch Aziraphale pack. Crowley had said he’d arrive at 9 am on the dot, and the angel obviously wasn’t in the remote vicinity of ‘ready’. The thought of a leisurely lunch before receiving the keys vanished.

“I can’t leave the papyri!” Aziraphale called from the back room. “Oh, the Revelation case is never going to fit in the car…”

“Hang on,” Crowley said, because he’d seen Mary Poppins. He gestured towards the humidity-controlled, air-tight case, and it shank until it was only an inch high. “There. Now, you just point at what you want to bring, and I’ll pack.”

It took two blessed hours for Aziraphale to pack “all the essentials” into the battered leather bag which Crowley had last seen in the hand of a dead Nazi. But Crowley knew Aziraphale well, and that he would inevitably worry and pack far more than he’d said he was going to. Especially given the fire fresh on their minds. In the end, Aziraphale packed every book and tablet and scroll which dated to before the printing press, along with all his Wildes, a couple of crates of incunabula, all his grimoires, and his prophecy collection. Slippers, pyjamas, dressing gown, favourite mug, Crowley’s mug, favourite glass, Crowley’s glass, paisley throw and tea collection and incense collection and lots of the best alcohol-

“Come on!” Crowley said. “We’ve got theatre tickets for the 20th of November! If you really can’t survive without something we can drive back and get it!”

“Yes – yes, yes, all right. I know. Yes.”

Crowley tried not to scream as they went through the new ritual with the lock, and then they were _finally_ in the blasted car, back seat full of houseplants and the sketch of the Mona Lisa, leather bag and carpet bag slung in the boot.

“Do you think I should bring the Syrian bookstand?” Aziraphale said, and Crowley pressed the accelerator to the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Were it not for shadows, there would be no beauty" is a quote from Junichiro Tanizaki's essay on Japanese aesthetics, _In Praise of Shadows_. As soon as I saw the set design for the bookshop, that's what it made me think of, and Aziraphale's excellent Japanese secured it for me.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obviously life is terrible, all hope is gone, a cold and dark winter is bearing down on us, I won't say any more or I'll start saying lots of very nasty things. Have a chapter instead!

It was sunny for late October, and the frost on the ground had been burnt off by the time they unlocked the door to their new house.

Aziraphale was beside himself. He touched the door, the handle, the knocker and the letterbox. He ran his hand along the wainscoting and the post of the staircase, then went across to touch the mantlepiece and the windowsills. “It’s so lovely.”

“Eh, it’s all right,” said Crowley, but he was smiling. “You’ll be wanting us to go to an antiques place then.”

“Oh, yes. This room needs a nice big carpet…”

“Yeah. Something to take the edge off the cold… Right, if you bring the bags in, I’ll try to find out how to turn the bloody heating on.”

The Mona Lisa went above the fireplace, naturally. The houseplants were set down in a line, like a platoon of soldiers ready to be inspected. Aziraphale decided to deal with the ‘front of house’ books first, before bringing the more precious items upstairs.

This was what he enjoyed. Arranging things, find the perfect niche or cubby hole for a particular item, looking over all the fragile and filigreed little things he’d found on his lonely journey through time. Deciding which scrolls should sit with which. Ought he to organise the books by language? Subject? Year? Which kinds of books to go in which rooms? What would each room be for them?

Wherever there was a clear stretch of wall he coaxed bookshelves of polished walnut from the air. It felt _transgressive_ , it felt _dangerous_ – he felt sure he would turn around and there would be Gabriel with a shark’s smile and a “Whatcha doing there, buddy?” Or Heaven would wait, and a week later there’d be a note summoning him to explain himself.

Gosh, the cottage was cold.

And one of the shelves had come through crooked. “Sugar,” said Aziraphale, and frowned in concentration.

“Having trouble?”

“We can’t all be masters of conjuration,” he said to Crowley. “I want it to be more _solid_.”

“Your problem is that you’re thinking of reality as a spectrum,” Crowley said. He banged the shelf, and it straightened. “It’s either real and solid and there, or it isn’t. You’ve got to have faith in your own power.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful. How nice. Did you find that on a mug, or have you been reading self-help books?”

Crowley snorted. “What I mean is that there aren’t any quotas or audits anymore. I’ll do some more shelves upstairs later. You organise the books down here. I know that’s your favourite.”

Aziraphale softened. “It is.” He remembered Crowley’s present and brightened. “Let’s have a break first; I’ll make some tea.”

“Tea? Fuck off, I bought champagne,” Crowley said. “Celebratory bottle.”

“Champagne later. Tea first,” Aziraphale insisted. The surprise wouldn’t work with something cold. “I’ll do that one with the little chocolate nibs that you like.”

“Urgh, fine,” Crowley said. “I’m going to see to the plants, then I’ll do us a table.”

“Thank you, my dear.” Aziraphale found the kettle in his book bag, and stretched it back to its normal size before filling it from the tap and flicking the switch. Chocolate flavoured tea, porcelain teapot. He remembered to plug the kettle in, and the water began to bubble.

He tiptoed to the doorway and glanced around the door to check that Crowley was busy. He was, examining the houseplants for any damage from the journey. Aziraphale smiled to himself and ducked back into to the kitchen.

Cunningly hidden throughout the trauma of packing was a small cardboard box; from this Aziraphale brought out a plain white mug. He had spotted it in one of the gift shops in Soho, and instantly known he’d have to buy it for Crowley. It looked like a plain mug until it was filled with a hot drink (so the mug claimed) – then, as if by magic, the white would turn blue and purple, revealing a pattern of stars and constellations.

Crowley’s instinct had been to find a haven in the stars. Aziraphale wanted to gift him with this cup of stars: a promise that they would make their own domestic haven together, and Crowley could still have stars.

“You miserable piece of shit!”

Aziraphale froze.

It’s Crowley, his brain tried to remind him, only Crowley, but the _words_ , the _tone_ , the _contempt_ , they weren’t Crowley. They were nothing like Crowley. They were like-

“Oh, was the ride bumpy? Was the car too cramped? I’m going to give you twenty-four hours to shape the fuck up, you _pathetic excuse_ for an … angel?”

The cup of stars lay in fragments on the flagstones of the kitchen. Aziraphale turned his hands, not understanding for a second why they were empty. He looked up, and Crowley’s expression was the mirror-image of his own. “Aziraphale?”

“I dropped your mug,” Aziraphale said, looking down again. His hands were shaking; he gripped them, to hide it from Crowley. “Oh, bother.”

“It’s all right,” Crowley said. He bent down, and picked up the mug, whole again.

“It was a present. Meant to be a present – it’s magic. Human magic.” He closed his eyes. He sounded like an idiot. “Sorry. Sorry, my dear, you were- you were looking after the plants.”

“Telling them to shape up…” Crowley said, quietly, carefully. The kettle suddenly clicked off, and Aziraphale flinched. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Aziraphale said. The plastic packet of loose leaves and chocolate nips refused to open. “I’m the one who dropped it! I’m ever so sorry.”

“No. I won’t speak like that again.”

“You can speak however you like!” Aziraphale said, grabbing the mug and holding it up. “That’s what this _means_. That if you want to- Please, my dear.”

Crowley had taken his sunglasses off. His pupils flicked to the blank white mug, and then back to Aziraphale’s face. He took the mug back again, and placed it on the counter. “Let’s see it, then.”

“See what?” Aziraphale flicked the kettle on, remembered that it had already boiled, and flicked it off again.

“The magic.”

“We should wait for the tea to brew.”

“No, go on. I want to see it.”

Aziraphale poured the boiling water into the mug. Crowley picked it up and held it at eye level as it bloomed in shades of violet and cobalt and indigo. “Leuco dye. That’s brilliant, angel.”

“You like it?” He hated his voice. How needy he sounded. How anxious. How weak.

Crowley’s eyes were smiling as he turned the mug, looking at the different constellations. “Yeah. Really do. Now I get why you wanted tea.”

“Well. Now you’ve seen it, we can have champagne instead,” Aziraphale said. He couldn’t squash the feeling that he had irrevocably ruined the celebratory mood. “I’m sorry. I hadn’t heard you shout like that before.”

“You won’t again,” Crowley said. His voice was low, but firm. “I promise.”

Aziraphale looked down at his own mug, with its angel wings. The irrational fear had completely vanished, leaving only a mortified shame in its wake. “I _knew_ you weren’t talking to me.”

Crowley put the mug of hot water down, and took half a step towards Aziraphale. “Never.” He reached out a hand, and it hovered an inch above Aziraphale’s arm. “And I won’t talk to the plants like that again either. Brand new gardener. With a brand new mug.”

Aziraphale smiled, finally. “I’ll have to look out for a gardening one. Another magic one.”

“It’s not magic, Aziraphale, it’s simple chemistry. Like your ‘magic’ is _sleight of hand_.”

“Oh, no, that’s real magic,” Aziraphale said. “Just like the mug. Completely inexplicable, thus, magic. Thaumaturgy.”

“ _Thermoturgy,_ ” Crowley riposted, as Aziraphale had known he would. It made his heart settle back into its usual rhythm. “Well, I’d best give an apology to the plants.”

“I spoke to them a lot while you were asleep, you know.”

“Oh, so that’s why the buggers started misbehaving? You were spoiling them! No, no, urgh, fine, I’ll apologise. We’re going to be infested with pests before the week is out, watch this space.”

“Go on,” Aziraphale said with a smile.

“Aphids. Greenfly. Are you going to _watch_? You filthy pervert.”

Aziraphale finally laughed. “I’ll get the champagne.”

“I’ll need it. Analgesic. If you’ve got any morphine handy I’ll take that too.”

“I’m sorry, I’m afraid I took it all to cope with your driving.”

“I wouldn’t have needed to drive like that if your packing hadn’t been such a nightmare-“ Crowley was interrupted by the sound of a doorbell playing Westminster Quarters. “Jesus, is that ours?”

“Apparently so,” Aziraphale said. Every muscle in his body had tensed again, even though an angel or demon wouldn’t ring the bell. They’d come up through the floor, or tear the roof off… “I can’t sense anything supernatural. It feels like a human.”

“You answer the door, I’ll whip up some furniture.”

It was a human. Two humans, even. A man and a woman, both white and middle-aged. The woman was bearing a bottle of semi-skimmed milk. “Hi.”

“Hello,” Aziraphale said with a smile. “Oh! You must be-“

“Next door neighbours – hi,” said the woman again. “We, um. Thought that you might want milk, in case you hadn’t found the shop yet. For tea.”

“Oh, that’s so kind of you!” Aziraphale said, taking it.

“Angel, don’t be so rude,” Crowley said, coming up behind him. “I’m so sorry, the place is a state. Anthony Crowley. This is Aziraphale. We were just about to open a celebratory bottle of champagne – will you join us?”

“Oh! Well… it’s after noon, isn’t it?” the woman said, and the couple stepped inside.

*

Crowley ignored the waves of fury radiating off Aziraphale; he was smiling and charming, of course, but the angel was as antisocial as they came.

“We don’t even have the glasses unpacked,” he said.

“It’s all right – we’ve got two ready, give those to our guests, and we can have the mugs,” Crowley said with a toothy smile. “Don’t forget to put the milk in the fridge.”

He turned it on his unsuspecting guests. He wanted to know _everything_ about them. “There’s me telling him off for being rude – I didn’t even ask your names.”

“I’m Guy, Edwards, and this is my wife, Sarah.” The latter was looking at him with a little suspicion.

“Pleasure,” Crowley said, shaking both their hands.

“And you’re… Anthony? Tony?”

“You know, I hate my first name. Always go by Crowley. Even Aziraphale calls me it.”

“Right, yes, and… I’m sorry, your, um, has such an unusual name…” said Sarah.

“I know, right? Religious. Ah-zeer-ra-fell is the easiest.”

“Ah-zeer-ra-fell. Ah-zeer-ra-fell. I’ll try to remember.”

“Could just shorten it to Az, eh?” said Guy, as Aziraphale came through with mugs and glasses.

“Oh, no. It’s Aziraphale. Crowley, where’s the champagne, in mine or yours?”

“Mine.” Crowley waited until Aziraphale had disappeared into the kitchen again. “Sorry. Still unpacking, as you can see.”

“It’s ever so tidy!” said Sarah. “No boxes at all.”

“They’re in the other room. We’re doing it one at a time.”

“Oh, yes. If we’d been more on the ball, I’d have labelled the boxes by room.”

“If _you’d_ been more on the ball,” Guy corrected. “Still, we got it sorted in the end.”

This could be even more fun than Crowley had anticipated. “When did you move in?”

“Oh, only recently. We were meant to move in on the 23rd of August, but there was an _unbelievable_ traffic jam on the M25. We were there so long I fell asleep.”

“In the end police just said to turn around, ended up moved in the week after.”

“I remember that,” Crowley said. “Explosion or something, wasn’t it?”

“That’s right. Terrorism.”

“We don’t know that,” said Sarah.

“Don’t be naïve. Only the BBC’s left-wing bias means they won’t tell it like it is. Too afraid of _offending_ people with the truth.”

“I said _exactly_ the same thing,” Crowley said conspiratorially, and then grinned when Aziraphale came back in with the opened bottle of champagne. “I didn’t hear it pop!”

“That’s because I’m rather better at it than you are,” Aziraphale said, filling Sarah’s glass first. “Excuse me, dear lady, I assumed – you’ll have some?”

“Oh, yes, thank you.”

“Any chance she gets! Thank you, yes,” Guy said, and held out his glass. “Well, cheers! Welcome to the neighbourhood.”

“Thank you,” Aziraphale said, softening a little. “Yes, it’s going to be very different to London. We’ve been there for centuries!”

“Same, same,” Guy said. “But this one wanted somewhere with a proper garden, bit quieter, you know.”

“Oh, me too,” Crowley said to Sarah. “So you’re a gardener?”

“Yes – all sorts, really. But I’d like to give roses a try.”

“Me too,” Crowley said. “As you can see, I’ve been indoors until now. And trees. Fruit trees.”

Sarah smiled. “Well, once you have some, if you have any leftovers, please think of me for tarts and jam and things.”

Aziraphale sat down with his own glass. “That would be _lovely_.”

Guy was smiling too. “See, that’s why I was so happy when I saw you. Such a nice surprise.”

Aziraphale directed his own highbeam at him. “What is?”

“That you’re English.”

Oh, _fuck yes_. Crowley had a Henman.

“Gosh. I’m so sorry to disappoint you,” said Aziraphale in an apricot tone. “I’m actually from Israel.”

Both Guy and Sarah looked surprised. “You mean, you were born there?”

“But… your accent-“

“The wonders of the BBC World Service!” Aziraphale’s smile was as tight as a drumskin. “I was born in Israel, in Jerusalem. I met Crowley in Iraq.”

“Bloody hell,” Guy said. “I’d never have guessed you were a soldier – no offence!”

“Oh, none taken,” Aziraphale said dangerously.

“Diplomatic corps. I was doing financial stuff, Aziraphale the religious side of things, mostly. But don’t worry, I’m as English as they come.” Crowley winked at Guy. “I keep him in check.”’

Aziraphale wore the long-suffering expression of someone who knew exactly what Crowley was doing, and didn’t quite have it in him to disapprove with much passion. Fuck, he adored this angel. “You’re wicked,” was all Aziraphale said, and topped up their champagne. “And what do you do, my dear?”

“I-"

“She was in art school, actually, when we met. Still does the odd painting, don’t you, darling?” said Guy.

“Oh, really? I adore art,” Aziraphale said, eyes on Sarah. “Did you go to the Pre-Raphaelite exhibition at the Tate?”

“I went to the Burne-Jones,” she said. “It was wonderful. I’d never seen the Perseus series in the flesh.”

“Oh, yes, I spent _so_ much on prints,” Aziraphale said. “ _Love Among the Ruins_ is my favourite of his, we have to put it up in here somewhere.”

“Really?” Sarah said. She looked surprised. It looked good on her, thought Crowley. “I don’t like it – it always makes me think of the way he treated Maria Zambaco.”

“Which was hideous – and his poor wife, of course. Women in general!” Aziraphale said. “But I can’t help but love the painting still. It’s so beautiful. So quiet. Crowley generally prefers Renaissance works, which I love too, obviously. But there’s a new exhibition on the Pre-Raphaelite _Sisterhood_ which looks really marvellous.”

“Don’t think I could stand it,” Guy said.

“You needn’t come,” Aziraphale said sweetly. “Honestly, Crowley and I are planning on going to London at least once or twice a month – I have to check on my bookshop, do various bits there – you could come with us, if you ever fancied it.”

“Absolutely,” Crowley said. “My car has a back seat, it’d be no trouble.” It was good to see Aziraphale in Guardian of Eden mode. Having heard Gabriel in Heaven, he wasn’t surprised that this woman would arouse Aziraphale’s protective instinct.

“Yes, I meant to ask about your car,” said Guy. Aziraphale was asking Sarah what artist’s supplies she preferred, was there a particular shop in London she used?

They finished the bottle of champagne. Sarah stood up and collected the glasses, and Crowley could smell Aziraphale’s irritation. It was like the air a second before a lightning strike. He followed her through, chatting all the while about oils and watercolours.

Guy leant forwards. “I’m sorry if I offended your…”

“It’s all right. He reads the Guardian. He’ll take offence at anything.” Crowley grinned. He wanted to get this bastard onside. He wanted to know what he was afraid of, other than immigrants he couldn’t hurl racist abuse at anymore, or women he couldn’t slap on the arse at work anymore, or gays he couldn’t give a kicking to after school anymore. “I’ve told him that he needs to be careful, with his hair that colour, people’ll mistake him for a snowflake.”

Guy laughed, and Crowley could hear the relief. “Does he dye it?”

“No, actually, his natural colour. And this is mine. Both cursed, I reckon.”

Guy smiled at Aziraphale as he and Sarah returned from the kitchen. “Are we opening another?”

“I’m afraid we don’t have anything else unpacked,” Aziraphale said. “But it's been _so_ lovely to meet you both.” His smile became genuine as he looked back to Sarah. “Really.”

“And you,” she said. “I’m sure you just want to settle in today, but… if you wanted to come to dinner tomorrow-“

“We’d love to,” Crowley said immediately. “That’d be great.”

“Great – great! Any allergies – are you vegetarian?”

“No, no, we’ll eat anything,” Aziraphale assured her.

Crowley showed them out the door, and rubbed the Bentley in Guy’s face for a while. When he came back inside Aziraphale was glaring at him. “What? I’m being friendly.”

“With that _appalling_ man,” said Aziraphale with a shudder.

“I know, right?” Crowley said. “Satan, that was better than the champagne. I feel all warm and tingly.”

Aziraphale manifested a sponge just to throw it at Crowley’s head. “I have a splitting headache. And his poor wife!”

“You did very well, angel. Played very nicely with the other children.”

“It’ll be a book next.”

Crowley grinned, and rested his chin in his hands. He felt… strangely warm. Happy. He was living with Aziraphale. He, and Aziraphale were living in _their house_. They were free. Aziraphale was threatening to throw a book at his head. It was perfect.

He could get used to this.

He caught himself in the thought. No, first he had to make the hideous man and his doormat wife move out. Then Aziraphale would have room for all his books, and Crowley would have free run of the whole garden, complete with the deck-prism of a greenhouse.

But he had to get inside the stupid bastard’s head, and Aziraphale would be suspicious if Crowley seemed too friendly with him. He needed a plausible reason to spend time with the couple, learn what made them tick, learn what worked and what didn’t. “Want to make life interesting?”

“No!” Aziraphale said. “I want life to be very calm and boring! That’s why we’re here!”

“Ah, but this will make life interesting by _dint_ of peace and quiet and goodwill to all men.”

Aziraphale looked unimpressed.

“I bet that you’ll have given him one of your angelic suggestion conversion thingies by the end of the year.” Crowley wiggled his fingers for emphasis.

“I don’t do that.”

“Yes, you do.”

“I use reason and pathos and-“

Crowley wiggled his fingers again.

“No!”

“Well, if you don’t do it, then you’ll definitely win,” said Crowley. “It’ll be easy for you. To not do something you don’t do.”

Aziraphale glared at him. Crowley sipped his champagne.

“Fine, what are we betting?”

“Holiday. If you win – so, no miraculous conversions to the side of good and light and not being an enormous dickhole before 12-0-1 on New Year’s Day - we’ll go to Kyoto for a month.”

Aziraphale sat down. Bingo. Bless, he was _such_ a good tempter. He still had it. Fuck you, Hell, Crowley thought, and instantly shoved the thought away. “And if you win?”

“Month in Las Vegas.”

“No!”

“Yep.”

“You don’t even _like_ Las Vegas! You’d like the gardens in Kyoto a thousand times more!”

“But you would _so hate_ Las Vegas. All that greed and debauchery and corn syrup.” Crowley was beaming at him. “If you wanted tea, they’d fill a mug with water and _microwave it_. And I’d get to watch.”

“You’re a sadist.”

“Or instead it could be frothy matcha, done with the bamboo whisk, in one of those big ugly cups you have to hold with both hands. And one of the perfect little sweets that looks like a jewel, all wrapped in paper, and it just _melts_ on your tongue against the bitterness of the tea. I wonder what flower they’d pick. You’ve be able to talk about the provenance of the scroll… Not to mention the sushi. We could go to an onsen. All that saké…”

“Fine,” Aziraphale said, and held out his hand. “You’re on.”

Crowley shook it. Sorted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tim Henman was Britain's best tennis hope in the 1990s who tended not to do very well, so a Henman is slang for an unexpected semi.
> 
> All I could think of while writing Crowley in this chapter was [this comedy clip.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MG4ROwWzzA)


	4. Chapter 4

Once the couple had left, Aziraphale said that the milk had reminded him that he wanted to walk to the village shop before it closed, just for tea and biscuits.

“I can drive you,” Crowley said.

“No, it’s all right, my dear boy,” Aziraphale said. “I want to see how long it takes. Back soon.”

Crowley couldn’t help the nasty feeling of unease in his gut when the door closed behind Aziraphale, but it was typical of the angel. Less than an hour talking to a couple of strangers, and he needed solitude to recalibrate. Crowley, he suspected, was a neutral presence; Aziraphale didn’t need to recover after spending time with him, but neither did spending time with him constitute genuine recovery.

He shoved his anxiety down, and took the opportunity to go into the kitchen and study the mug Aziraphale had given him.

How could Aziraphale have thought, even for a second, that Crowley had been speaking to him like that? Like a bloody houseplant?

It made him think of the Bastille – or whatever prison it had been, Aziraphale always called it the Bastille whenever he mentioned it. At the time, Crowley had been annoyed. Here was Aziraphale, willing to risk a violent and humiliating discorporation on the basis of a _strongly worded note_. He wouldn’t last five seconds in Hell, Crowley had thought with the fury of the ground-down and kicked-around as Aziraphale made his way through a plateful of crêpes. The _helplessness_ had infuriated him. Aziraphale wasn’t helpless; he’d survived flood and fire and plague and war for nearly six thousand years.

And then, in 1798, he’d thought, _shit_. Aziraphale had survived flood and fire and plague and war. And he would rather be carried through jeering, spitting crowds on a tumbril, strapped down to a bench, and have his head cut off in front of hundreds of people – not even considering his comfortable, worn corporation being tossed into a mass grave stinking of death and quicklime, and Satan knew how many years in Heaven waiting for a new one – than face a Heavenly reprimand. How strong _were_ those blessed words?

And then, in 1800, he'd seen Aziraphale unnaturally still, hands clasped tight behind his back, face pale, when Gabriel told him that he was finally being allowed to come home.

Crowley was not immune to propaganda, even if he’d invented it. You forgot. You looked back on the past with rose-tinted glasses. You let nostalgia worm its creeping little fingers around your brain. You looked around Hell, with its snarling conspiracies and bureaucratic malice and gleeful delight in indignities and threats, and you subconsciously began to think that _Heaven was different_. You began to believe the old story that Heaven was better.

You never forgot the Flood. You never forgot the Fall. But time healed wounds even if you did your damnedest to keep them open and hurting. That, he supposed, was how Aziraphale had kept plodding on even after Heaven demoted him and cut two wings out of him. Crowley _had_ forgotten that.

He went back into their living room - Aziraphale would probably call it the _drawing room_ \- and he squatted down on his heels among the houseplants. “Now, listen,” he said, very quietly. The plants strained to hear him. “I don’t like you, and you don’t like me. But the angel doesn’t like shouting, so there’s not going to be any more shouting. That is _not_ an excuse for _any_ of you to start slacking off. I’m looking at you, Philodendron – you’ve had a lucky escape, and you can thank the angel for it.”

He looked around at them all. “I want you to remember something. No shouting? Means no warning.”

Aziraphale returned, perfectly safe and bearing biscuits. Crowley retired early a few hours later, citing tiredness from creating so much furniture – one large bed, he said, and then he was done for the day.

“Oh, right,” Aziraphale said, and Crowley saw the line of anxiety between his eyebrows.

“Could you wake me up at ten, if I don’t wake up before then?” he guessed, and Aziraphale’s face instantly cleared.

“Of course! Sleep well, my dear. I’ll stay down here and organise for a little longer.”

Crowley made the bed, and dressed it, but he didn’t sleep. He turned himself invisible instead, and slipped through the wall into the Edwards’ house.

They thought that he and Aziraphale were… together. Both of them had said it, and Crowley had done _nothing_ to correct them.

He could hear them both downstairs, so he began with a scent of woman’s perfume in the bedroom. You had to be subtle – you had to let impressions _build_ over time. So. Old-fashioned perfume.

It would have been so easy. The wife had even given him the opportunity: _Your um – yes, my best friend._

In one corner of the landing he created an icy cold spot. In the corner, somewhere they wouldn’t pass through every day.

_My best friend for six thousand years. My best friend, whose body I’ve worn. Who walked into Hell for me._ Literally _walked into Hell._

Crowley pulled down the trapdoor to the attic and nearly discorporated himself when the ladder fell down. He caught it before it hit the ground, and climbed up. He didn’t want to escalate the shenanigans too early. He was a craftsman. It was like lacquer, he thought, employing a metaphor Aziraphale would like. Build up the layers.

It had just been so _nice_ , just for a second, to have someone else look at them and think, oh. They’re in love. Even if it wasn’t true. Even if Aziraphale was oblivious, and Crowley was… not going to push his luck. To know that someone else, even idiots, thought of them as a _pair_.

Like he did.

In the far corner of the attic he placed another cold spot, and the overwhelming stench of a rotting corpse. Then, where their attic connected to his and Aziraphale’s, he placed a locked door. You never knew.

Fuck, he’d been so fucking _stupid_. They were going to bring it up, sooner rather than later, and Aziraphale wasn’t _that_ oblivious, and then Aziraphale would deny it and Crowley would hear the disgust in his voice and his speed to correct the misconception, and that would be it, this weird little absolutely NOT a honeymoon would be over. It would die in a miasma of shame and awkwardness.

He climbed down from the attic. The ladder slid back up after him.

That was enough, for now. But he could creep down the stairs, and listen to see if they were talking about them…

He lingered on the stairs for an hour, having a staring competition with a pretty egregious painting of, of all things, an angel. An angel in a pink dress with a constipated expression. He looked a bit like Aziraphale watching a very courteous and considerate customer in his bookshop.

But the Edwards couple only talked about someone called Hannah, and _Strictly Come Dancing_ , and then Brexit, so Crowley melted back through the wall and went to bed.

*

Poor Crowley went up to bed, tuckered out from all the packing and unpacking. Aziraphale finished filling another bookshelf, then went to make some cocoa.

The semi-skimmed milk which Sarah had gifted them would do nicely. He put the pan on a gentle heat, slowly stirring cocoa powder into it.

The house was very unlike the bookshop. It was much barer, for one thing. The little accoutrements in the kitchen and bathroom were all modern and shiny. The walls were painted in ivory and pastel blue and rose pink. He was so excited to put their own stamp on it. His books and brocades. Crowley’s plants and marvellous sketch over the mantelpiece.

And Crowley would take the garden, and Aziraphale could fill the field with wildflowers between the fruit trees. He was going to keep bees, he’d decided. He’d not kept bees for centuries, since that monastery in Offaly – or Shropshire? Which one was first? Clonmacnoise, so it must have been Shropshire, the last time he’d been a monastery’s beekeeper. Crowley would grow apples, and he would harvest honey, and together they could celebrate every New Year. The thought of it made him feel all warm and wiggly.

There were so many new books about bee-keeping that he could read. So much new research! He could braid skeps in the evening, in front of a fire, with Crowley’s be-bop playing. Then he’d be ready, when spring came, and exiles of an overcrowded hive crowned their own queen and swarmed.

He’d always loved bees, ever since the Garden. The whole hive working together to create things sweet and beautiful and nourishing. That was what Heaven should be like, he thought, and the thought was like a brick wall materialising across a motorway.

The milk was bubbling. Aziraphale lifted the pan off the heat. Honey. He’d been thinking about bees, and honey, not Heaven. He could put some honey in the cocoa. Yes.

Hives needed protection. Their home needed guards…

Honey has one sixtieth the sweetness of manna. Dreams are one sixtieth of prophecy. The Sabbath is one sixtieth the bliss of the world to come. Sleep is one sixtieth of death. And the pain of fire is one sixtieth of the pain of Hell.

Aziraphale poured the hot cocoa into his mug with its white wings. Sixty… Sixty was braiding and baskets, so excellent for skeps. Purification, watching, enclosure, treasure. Both wailing and comfort.

He carried his hot chocolate to the table and drew some paper towards him. Protection. He’d carve boundary stones for them, and he could write bowls to place under the thresholds and inside the windowsills. They would capture any demons which tried to enter without their knowing… He’d have to write them in such a way as to keep Crowley immune to their effect.

Could an incantation bowl be written that would contain an angel too?

Aziraphale had bought a new laptop, having glimpsed the possibilities of the modern age on Crowley’s Mac. It was _not_ an Apple model, but a bulky £400 piece of dark plastic which ran Linux and did just what Aziraphale wanted.

It didn’t take very long to write a gematria programme. He input the values for each Hebrew letter, and fashioned a simple calculator which would give every possible combination for a given number. Most of it was gibberish, of course, but it was then a relatively straightforward task of reading through the given list for any resulting words or phrases. One day he could no doubt cross-reference it to a Hebrew Dictionary and the Masoretic Text. But this would do for tonight.

His own name had a value of 329. Crowley’s was either 273 or 353. He very much hoped it was the latter.

Aziraphale – 329. He looked down the list, writing words or phrases as he found them. When he reached _mefater_ (dismissal, sacking, being fired), he topped up the mug of cold chocolate with cognac.

*

Crowley staggered down the stairs at noon, rubbing his eyes. Aziraphale hadn’t woken him at ten, but he’d felt no distress, no absence. And there the angel was, sitting at the table wearing those ridiculous, adorable glasses of his.

“Good morning, my dear!” Aziraphale said with a wide smile. The table was littered in pieces of paper, covered in Hebrew and numbers and complicated equations. “In Hebrew, do you spell your name with a kaf, or a qof?”

“Dunno. Never used to write much,” Crowley said. He thought for a moment. “Qof. Why?”

“Gematria,” Aziraphale said. He had picked up a piece of paper and was tearing it into quarters. “If it’s qof that gives us one hundred instead of the twenty for kaf, so quite a shift, but that means the value of your name is three hundred and fifty -three! I was so hoping you spelt it with a qof – that gives you a prime number.”

Crowley walked into the kitchen and flicked on the electric kettle. “Is that good?”

“It has advantages and disadvantages. More difficult to slot into formulae, but far more solid when you _do_ do anything with it. It’s the seventy-first prime, and that’s a prime too… Which makes your name a super-prime, if I’m not mistaken! Though if I remember correctly it’s also the country code for Ireland...”

“God’s little joke,” Crowley said.

“You picked you name, it’s definitely not God’s fault.”

“Yes, I should have thought of that _two thousand years_ before the invention of the telephone.” Aziraphale scribbled something on the page. Glancing at it made Crowley’s head spin. “What’s all this for?”

“I’m going to write us some incantation bowls. Catching demons with you as an exception. Could you drive to the village and buy some bowls? Any will do. It’d be better if they were pure clay – oh, no, bone china! Yes, bone china would be marvellous.”

“No. No bowls.”

“They’ll be perfectly safe for you, I promise.”

“I don’t want any incantation bowls in my house. What if I get stuck in one again?”

“Well, that’s why I’m bothering with all this!” Aziraphale said, gesturing to the table. “Is that the kettle?”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Crowley said. “What are you having?”

“The little rolled up pearls, please.”

Crowley poured these into the tarnished tea strainer. “Why did we move here? Where do you think the nearest Starbucks is?”

“If you put the sugar in with cream, froth it, add the granules, froth it again, _then_ add the hot water, you won’t be able to tell the difference. That’s what my friend told me, and he was head chef at the Dorchester.”

"Your 'friend' being the guy who pisses up the back of the shop and got fired for snorting coke in the kitchen?”

“ _My friend_ for whom I make coffee and who is very particular about how he takes it.” Aziraphale snapped his fingers, and an instrument that looked like a very dangerous sex toy appeared on the counter. “There – use the whizzy thing.”

Crowley made up the coffee and tried it. _The pai_ _r of bastards_ , he thought, and carried the mugs through. “Here.”

“Oh, thank you.” Aziraphale idly stirred the tea-strainer while he wrote. Crowley sat down with his cup off coffee and looked at one of the top sheets.

“This is you?”

“Yes. Three hundred and twenty-nine. I haven’t done anything with it yet, it’s all just nonsense until I start writing the incantation.”

Crowley’s eyes slid over the Hebrew.

_Aziraphale – 329_

  * _Sacking, firing_
  * _Northern shield_
  * _Last prophecy_
  * _Not much_
  * _A man of sin_
  * _A living man_
  * _The lost man_
  * _Not straight_
  * _Salt in the air_
  * _Cancerous_
  * _Gravitation_
  * _Filter_
  * _Critical_
  * _One righteous man in Sodom_
  * _Separate_
  * _Last judgement_
  * _Intense yearning_
  * _I will guarantee him_
  * _In despair_
  * _Stay away_
  * _Repulsive creature_
  * _May be erased_



_May be erased._ It had a sense of likeliness about it, in Hebrew. It was something that was liable to happen, but also something that was apt. Something that was allowed. He swallowed as he read through the list again.

“And these are the phrases that leapt out, are they?” he said quietly.

“There were thousands. I’m going to have to find a better way of weeding out anything of use.”

“Can you write out a key for me?” Crowley said. “I can help.”

Aziraphale looked surprised. “But you don’t like mathematics… I suppose it’s only arithmetic, before I start writing the magic. That’d be very kind, my dear.”

Aziraphale wrote out a key for him. The sunlight was strong despite the chill in the air, causing condensation on the insides of the windows. They worked in silence, sipping tea and coffee.

“Got something,” Crowley announced. He pulled a fresh piece of paper towards himself and wrote out his sentence. “Here. Gematria value of 329, just like you.”

“Oh, well done,” Aziraphale, with such bastardy surprise. “ _Ein li zayin v’ein li moakh_ -!” Aziraphale screwed up the paper and threw it at Crowley’s face; Crowley was bent double, helpless with apoplectic laughter. “This is serious, Crowley!”

“I- I have no dick-“

“Crowley!”

“And no brain! I can’t believe you- Fuck!” It was a good thing he wasn’t wearing sunglasses, because he was crying with laughter.

“I’m trying to keep us _safe_ -“ Aziraphale said, but there it was, the twitch in the corner of his mouth that gave him away.

Crowley wiped his eyes. His sides hurt. “I have no dick, and no brain. It works. Value of 329.”

“You are a _child_ ,” Aziraphale said, but he was finally chuckling, pretence of disapproval abandoned. “ _'I'm_ _weaponless and stupid_.’ Now, _that’s_ God’s little joke.”

Crowley’s laughter died instantly, and stared at Aziraphale in astonishment – a _zayin_ referred to a dick, but also a weapon. “Fuck me.”

“I can’t, if I have no penis.”

“No, I mean… She couldn’t have meant that. She _couldn’t_ have.”

“She literally could. Omniscient. If when She named me She knew I’d give away my sword and then be stupid enough to try to lie to her… I wouldn’t put it past Her.” Aziraphale looked down at his notes again. “I’d rather that interpretation than some of the others on there…”

Crowley felt chilled. He looked back at the mass of notes on the table, and his own name caught his eye. It had been carefully hidden under the blank piece of paper Crowley had used for his joke. His eyes flew over the Hebrew.

_Crowley – Qof – 353_

  * _God restores_
  * _Thoughtful_
  * _Heart-healing_
  * _We can’t_
  * _Fierce Tower from an enemy_
  * _Weak-footed_
  * _Spice/seasoning_
  * _Apostasy_
  * _Come close_
  * _Seize_
  * _Love and darkness_
  * _My love_
  * _Wild grapes_
  * _Lattice_
  * _Good idea_
  * _To the place they found_
  * _In the wasteland_
  * _And come and live_



_Come close_

_My love_

_Fierce Tower from an enemy_

_In the wasteland_

_To the place they found_

_Heart-healing_

_And come and live_

Aziraphale suddenly straightened all the pages and hid it again. “It’s not ready,” he said; his gaze met Crowley’s, and then slid away. “I’m just collecting words – phrases – anything that might work in an incantation bowl. I’ll test them before I put them anywhere. Trying to write one that could catch angels too. With us as exceptions. Obviously.”

Crowley nodded until he could speak again. “Obviously.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God, I spent ages on the bloody Gematria. Just used some standard calculators, didn't do anything special or complicated. If you want the Hebrew for any of the phrases just let me know, but I'm afraid I didn't/don't have the time to do a load of transliteration! All of my spare time has gone into Gematria-accurate dick(less) jokes. XD
> 
> The "brick wall across a motorway" metaphor was nicked shamelessly from Douglas Adams.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What a rotten week. As I thought, officially going on hiatus relieved some of the pressure of writing, so paradoxically made it easier to finish the chapter. Absolutely typical. I'm still officially 'not here', and will reply to all your outstanding comments at the end of January - please know how much I appreciate them, how kind they are, and how happy they make me! 
> 
> I'll delete last chapter later, but thank you especially to fuxshakes, Periphyton, noodlefrog, rotmantic, Himeneka, mecurtin, HotCrossPigeon, AmbassadorInara, and emilycare for leaving such kind messages. <3

Worried about other angels being able to undo his miracles, Aziraphale had insisted that he was going to work all his apotropaic magic the human way. This necessitated a trip in the Bentley to buy stone-carving gear for the boundary markers (as well as wood-carving materials and pottery glaze if it could be found).

Crowley and Aziraphale staggered out of the Portsmouth B&Q confused, dazed, overwhelmed. Not, it must be said, as confused, dazed and overwhelmed as the Portsmouth B&Q was, which had never sold epigraphic tools before.

They stocked up on the essentials while they were out, including a bottle of red and a bottle of white to bring to the Edwards’. “It’s quite exciting, isn’t it?” said Aziraphale, with an underlying hint of desperation. “Dinner with the neighbours. It’s so human.”

_You need to tell him,_ Crowley thought. _You need to tell him you let them think you were a couple._ But then they were at home, and parking, and the words still hadn’t come.

Then Aziraphale went upstairs to put on a spritz of cologne – a light unisex one that smelt of wool and moss, one his barber suggested for a move to the country – and Crowley glared at the houseplants, daring them to say anything.

Maybe Aziraphale wouldn’t notice anything. He could be rather oblivious sometimes, and right now his head was full of Kabbalistic equations and whether bone china or clay would make a better bowl to hold an angel. And how to deal with Guy.

“We should make the house safe first,” Aziraphale hissed as Crowley closed the door behind them.

“It’ll be fine. We were out all afternoon.”

“What if they don’t like us? What if they hate us, and tell Heaven and Hell where we are?”

Crowley gave him a _look_. “I doubt they believe in either. Think - even if they knew _anything_ , how would they make contact? Come on, angel, get a grip, eh? And we’re next door, we can stagger out if they’re really unbearable.”

Aziraphale often got like this. He didn’t mind interacting with humans for five minutes at a time, or in a specific situation with codified rules and roles – like his barber, he loved going to the barber, or the manicurist – but he felt the need to keep up his bright and polite façade throughout any interaction without those boundaries and scripts, so began to flag after half an hour. “I think I’m coming down with something.”

“You’re _not_. You always get like this. It’ll be fine.” Crowley led him through the riot of white oleander that filled their half of the front garden. The plants symbolised caution, warned anyone approaching to _beware, beware_. Aziraphale would like that.

“I don’t mind Sarah, but her husband reminds me of Gabriel. And you’ll just wind him up to win your bet, and he’ll be even more offensive.”

Crowley rang the doorbell. “Yup. That’s the plan.” A cat was noisily washing itself on the front step; Crowley aimed a lazy kick at it and received a sharp and far more accurate one on the ankle. “Ow!”

“Serves you right.”

Though the plastic and frosted glass door they could see Guy doing a performatively enthusiastic walk towards them. “God, heal my strength,” Aziraphale muttered, then beamed as Guy opened the door. “Hello!”

“Hi, mate,” Guy said, shaking Aziraphale’s hand very firmly. “Not unpacked your clothes yet?”

“No, we have,” Crowley said, once he parsed what this meant. “Aziraphale’s a cartoon character. Has twelve identical outfits in his wardrobe.”

“Don’t tease, my dear,” said Aziraphale with an _isn’t-he-silly?_ smile for Guy. “We bought wine!”

Crowley stepped inside, and smelt the instantly unmistakable scent of burning flesh.

His stomach dropped to the ground, and went straight on down. Burning flesh – smoke, and fire, fire underneath it, there had to be a fire-

“We’re having roast pork,” Guy said. “Oh, shit. I just remembered… the Israel thing…”

“It’s all right,” Aziraphale ground out. “I don’t keep the food laws.”

Crowley forced his heartbeat back into a more regular rhythm, and knuckled his sternum at the resulting twinge. His eyes lingered suspiciously on Guy. Yeah, Crowley might enjoy the bastard being evil, but if he thought Aziraphale was Jewish and was intentionally being a dick about it, Crowley might have to sacrifice the long game in favour of something more drastic. “I’ll never forget how scandalised I was when you invited me to that oyster restaurant in Rome,” he said.

“Oh, hush. They really were excellent, though,” said Aziraphale. “Sarah, my dear, hello – we didn’t know whether you wanted red or white, so we bought both.”

“Both are perfect,” said Sarah, coming into the hall to lead them through. “Shall I open the white to start with?”

“Please – oh,” said Aziraphale, as he stepped into the living room. “Oh, my Lord. What a _lot_ of angels.”

One wall was covered in small, hand-painted canvases, each showing an angel with Victorian curls, more than half of them wearing pink robes. A few Michaels, a handful of Gabriels, some others in white and blue and green. There were wall-hangings. There were ceramic models. There were stained-glass angels and Swarovski crystal angelic tealight holders. A foot-high statue of Michael, and a matching angel in pink with a goblet were placed on a small table, complete with an angel-embroidered tablecloth and a scattering of small crystals.

There was even a Yankee candle, displayed _proudly_ , which claimed the name ‘Angel Wings’. Crowley magicked it to smell of piss before Aziraphale noticed it and curiosity got the better of him. There were some opportunities he just couldn't be expected to pass up.

Guy sighed. “See, darling, I told you. It looks absolutely awful.”

“I didn’t say that!” said Aziraphale.

“You didn’t need to. They’re… tacky. It’s all superstitious nonsense.” Guy took the glass of wine Sarah handed to him. “It’s all right to have a hobby, but on display like this…”

“One should display what makes one happy,” Aziraphale said. Aziraphale wasn’t very good at navigating awkward conversations, Crowley thought hypocritically, he was usually the one causing them. “What one’s passionate about. Like me and my books.”

“Yeah, _books_. But no one over the age of eight believes in angels.”

Crowley quickly swallowed a large mouthful of wine.

“I do, but… You’re not _worshipping_ them, are you?” Aziraphale asked Sarah anxiously.

It made Crowley feel… fond. Such straightforward idolatry was relatively rare these days, but it had been such an important sin for so long that a few centuries couldn’t break the habit of looking out for it.

“Oh, no,” said Sarah. “You don’t worship angels. It’s not a religion, it’s _spiritual_. You… are open to their influence. The statues are a reminder.”

Aziraphale relaxed a little, and Crowley felt a small flare of jealousy at the warmth in the angel’s expression. Typical Aziraphale, to try to understand and see the best in the poor woman, instead of writing an idolatry ticket or whatever he was supposed to do.

“Like… Catholics do, I suppose… But do take care – only _dulia_ , no _latria_. Angels wouldn’t like that.”

Guy dramatically rolled his eyes and grinned at Crowley. Sarah smiled. “If I knew what _dulia_ and _latria_ are…”

“Oh, I'm sorry; I’ll explain over dinner, if you’ll permit me. So, who do we have here? I see Michael, but I don’t recognise…”

“Chamuel,” Sarah said, moving around so that Aziraphale and Crowley could see. “He’s one of the seven archangels.” _He fucking wasn’t_ , Crowley thought. “Just like Michael – Michael banishes negative energy from the house.”

Crowley couldn’t laugh. He _must not laugh_. Aziraphale was staring at the statues with wide eyes, like a rabbit in the path of an approaching car. “Really?”

“Mm-hm. So Michael banishes negative energies, and Chamuel welcomes love and affection in. He’s the angel of kindness and open-mindedness. That’s why there’s the fluorite stones.”

“Do you mean Camael?” Aziraphale said with desperate politeness. Crowley would have to praise Aziraphale’s restraint later. He also remembered Camael: a prick who smote according to his temper that day, and his temper was always rotten. “Pseudo-Dionysus says Camael’s one of the seven archangels.”

Sarah was delighted. “You know! So, yes, Camael is a different angel. Look, it’s in here.” She reached under the table to bring out a book entitled _Angel Lore: The Encyclopedia of Angels, Spirit Guides and Humanity’s Guardians._ Aziraphale took it as carefully as if it was a bomb, or as though he could somehow hold it without actually touching it. Crowley had never seen him hold a book like that before. Sarah opened the book to a marked page, and showed them a fair-haired angel, holding a cup. “He’s the angel that sent Adam and Eve out of Eden.”

Crowley inhaled sharply. He saw Aziraphale’s knuckles whiten on the book.

“Oh?” Aziraphale squeaked. “Shouldn’t… should he not have a flaming sword, then?”

“I don’t think so, I think it’s another angel with the sword. Chamuel comforted Adam and Eve as they left,” said Sarah. “And he comforted Jesus in Gethsemane.”

“He’s holding a cup,” Crowley said. It was a good thing he didn’t have to breathe, because if he exhaled right now he’d start laughing and not stop. “Seems like a party sort.”

“It’s the Sangreal,” Aziraphale muttered.

“Aziraphale, look,” Crowley said. Thank fuck he was wearing sunglasses. He needed to go to the end of the field and howl. “He has a _cup._ As his _symbol_. Aziraphale.”

“Yes, Crowley, I can see!" Aziraphale said, closing the book. “Well. He’s very nice.”

Crowley stopped time. He couldn’t cope any more. “He has a cup!”

Aziraphale rounded on him, peevishness at maximum capacity. “Really!”

Crowley was bent over he was laughing so hard. “Chamuel! I can’t believe they’ve made you up!”

“They’ve not made me up – they just- What on _earth_ did she mean about the fluorite? It is a reference to a murrine cup?”

Crowley lifted his sunglasses to wipe tears from his eyes. “Magic crystals. New Age stuff. ‘Spiritual but not religious’, all that jazz.”

Aziraphale frowned at him. “Witchcraft? I thought idolatry was bad enough! What are they doing involving _angels_ in witchcraft? Oh, that’s just asking for trouble.”

“It’s pastel witchcraft. No need to sign the Devil’s book and summon demons anymore. Now it’s angels instead.”

“Oh, this could be very bad,” Aziraphale said. He tugged at his waistcoat and wrung his hands. “I’m going to need to take this into account when I’m writing my bowls…”

“Nah, of course you don’t,” Crowley said. “Untwist your knickers. It’s all just a placebo, angel.”

Aziraphale looked doubtful, and just as Crowley started time again, he saw him glance anxiously up towards Heaven and clasp his hands together.

*

Aziraphale moved the food on his plate with his fork while Guy quizzed Crowley about the stock market and Crowley made up ever more implausible answers. When he began to talk about the Secret FTSE X Index, which listed super-elite companies only the richest investors were allowed to know about, Aziraphale stopped listening altogether.

Guy, well, that was just Gai. A ravine. 14. Oh, that was a lot of words. Love, beloved, gold, hand, brother, uncle. Proud, plunder, debate, worry. Those fit, at least.

Sarah, princess, 505. _Atah mugan_ – you are sheltered, protected, safe. You are safe. That was a good omen. Segulot, that was another 505 – talismans. Protective talismans. He was right. He was right! Sarah was linked with angels. The red string from the grave of Rachel might be tricky… Could that be what God wanted as a boundary marker? What was another segulah – _Ein od milvado_. There is none but Him.

No, Sarah’s name wasn’t a message to _him_. That was insanity. It was schizophrenic. No, Sarah’s name meant that _she_ was protected and shielded. The responsibility for keeping Crowley safe was on Aziraphale alone. He was still working on how to neutralise holy water. The only method he knew thus far was of subsuming the water in a greater-than-equal amount of profane water. Profane? Non-holy. Lay? Secular?

Aziraphale looked down at the plate of roast pork and cauliflower and roast potatoes, and he felt like he was looking at a still life in a gallery.

Nothing felt real. The food was the only grounding thing about the whole bizarre meal; for a second Aziraphale would taste, and convince himself that he was eating, and then it would be gone, as fleeting as scent on a breeze. Sarah was not real, her appalling husband was not real. His words about tenancy agreements and house prices drifted over Aziraphale, and it made him want to laugh. It wasn’t real! None of it mattered.

And Sarah had a score of paintings of angels who wouldn’t have given a single iota whether she’d been drowned in a sea of blood or burnt to a crisp by a nuclear holocaust. Burnt to a crisp. She’d be like this pork, with its crackling. She would smell the same.

Unless all that was left was charcoal. A shadow on a wall.

He blinked. Guy was looking pointedly between him and Sarah.

“Tony and, um, were saying how they’ve been to Rome,” Guy said.

“Aziraphale,” said Aziraphale. God Herself had called him into being by that name. Weaponless and stupid, in despair, repulsive creature, may be erased. No loss. “Yes. Hm. Sorry, right, yes. We’ve spent quite a lot of time in Italy, over the years. I’ve always preferred Florence, though. Or Venice.”

“Not Naples,” said Crowley. “And it’s Crowley.”

“Oh, gosh, no, not Naples!” Aziraphale agreed. “We’ve only ever had bad experiences in Naples.” Like when he was made Pope. What a disaster. “Though that was the Kingdom, not the city. Or was it in the Papal States? Not that it matters, it was all mixed up anyway.” Crowley had had to rescue him from that terrible tiny cell in Fumone so that he wouldn’t draw Heaven’s attention with a miracle, and then the humans had gone and made him a saint anyway. If Heaven ever found out about that… Well. What could they do to him? They’d already tried killing him.

He finished his glass of wine.

Guy, Sarah, and Crowley were looking at him.

(Crowley looked ever so handsome in the candlelight. His hair was at an awkward length, but Aziraphale loved his hair at any length…)

Aziraphale smiled back at them. It wouldn’t do to be unfriendly to the neighbours. Even if Guy was a rum one.

Not that Aziraphale could talk. However terrible Guy was, Aziraphale doubted he’d ever murdered a child.

He stood up suddenly. “I’m ever so sorry. Um. Where is your bathroom?”

“Um, just up the stairs, to the left,” Sarah said. “Are you all right?”

“Splendid,” Aziraphale said. “Ticketty-boo.” He didn’t look at Crowley as he fled.

The bathroom contained a white, claw-footed bathtub. He ran his hand along the curved rim, and then turned on the cold tap. The water was freezing, but had none of the sharp edge or cleansing sweetness of holy water. Just ordinary water.

He watched it for a few minutes until there was nothing in his mind whatsoever. Then he flushed the toilet, turned off the tap, and floated downstairs again.

Sarah had topped up his wine. “We went to Tuscany once,” she said, as though Aziraphale hadn’t left. “When our daughter Hannah was little. That was lovely.”

Aziraphale placed his knife and fork at four o’clock. “A daughter – that’s so wonderful. How old is she now?”

“Twenty. She’s studying pharmacy at Leicester.”

“So she’ll be able to deal you the good stuff, then?” Crowley said.

“All part of our plan for post-Brexit Britain; we’ll hook you up with the hardcore drugs like paracetamol,” Sarah said, with a flashing grin.

Crowley laughed in surprise. “We’ll grow some mould. Scrape the penicillin off it. I’ll plant some poppies, we’ll trade.”

“You a gardener too, Tony?”

“Crowley. Yeah, a bit. One of the reasons I wanted to move out of London. Thought we needed somewhere quiet for a bit.”

Crowley was looking at him. Aziraphale smiled back blandly, not knowing what precisely was wanted from him.

“I thought about the City,” said Guy. “But property’s better for a passive income.”

“What effect do you think Brexit’ll have on property prices?” Crowley asked.

Aziraphale resisted the temptation to kick Crowley’s ankle again. It was probably more instigation for the bet they'd made. He drank instead.

When Guy paused for breath, Crowley smiled at Aziraphale. “You should listen to this, angel. You’ve got property in London too.”

Aziraphale glared at him.

Guy blinked. “You do?”

“He does. Absolutely massive place in Soho. Two floor bookshop and a flat.”

“Soho – oh, ho,” said Guy. “Better not ask what kind of books you sold!”

“Sell,” replied Aziraphale. “I specialise in books of prophecy and misprinted Bibles.” He sipped his wine and smiled. “Though if you want gay literature, I can certainly lend you some.”

Crowley snorted. Guy was, predictably, saying that he’d love to, love to, but work – no time, such a shame, used to be such a big reader, read all sorts-

“I’d like to,” Sarah suddenly said, quietly cutting through her husband’s bluster as she came back with a small tray of ramekins. “I don’t think I’ve ever read anything written by- or about, um, anything that’s-“

He could suddenly sense it: love. Love, rolling off Sarah in waves, and Aziraphale realised that he'd not felt it in this house until now. Oh. So, Sarah did not love her husband, and her husband did not love her. But this topic – love was making her ask… “I know what you mean. Book with a focus, let’s say – what kind of books do you like? History? Poetry? Fiction?”

“I like novels.”

“Oh, me too,” Aziraphale said. The feeling of love brought him back to some form of reality. Love could puncture any kind of numbness or lack of reality. For love is stronger than death… He and Crowley knew that well. Whatever kind of love Crowley felt for him... “Well, I certainly have them. Do you like Forster? Howard’s End?”

“Oh, yes, exactly. I loved the latest BBC one – Room With a View, Passage to India, all those kind of things.”

“Then I know just the book. Though that one is focused on men. Perhaps you’d also like to read something about women?” Aziraphale said delicately.

Guy was going a very interesting shade of red.

Sarah’s eyes darted away, but she nodded, and made eye contact with Aziraphale again. “Yes. I don’t know anything about it, really – all the terminology, and… It’d be very kind of you.”

“Seems everyone’s gay these days,” said Guy.

Aziraphale ignored him. “It would be a pleasure. I can nip around and find something for you.”

Sarah smiled at him, so… relieved. She was relieved. “Another day, after pudding. You’ve barely touched your dinner – I didn’t think, about the pork…”

“It’s all right. What I had tasted very nice. There was a sweetness to it – did you use sugar?”

Sarah beamed at him. “Yes – well, honey, actually. I put rosemary in the jars.”

“Oh, that’s what it is – I couldn’t put my finger on it! I’m hoping to start up some hives in the spring, so there’ll be plenty of honey soon enough.”

“Oh, what a lovely idea!” Sarah exclaimed in return.

“It’s good to have a hobby,” Guy said. “Like Sarah’s paintings. And your books.”

“And Crowley’s investments!” said Aziraphale. Guy was _real_ , he reminded himself. He was a human being, however unreal he currently felt. He was a Child of God. “What about you, Guy? Have you any hobbies?”

“Work too hard for a hobby, mate! Too bloody hard. Golf when I can, but the tenants always want something or other. Every weekend it’s a dodgy boiler, dodgy gas, dodgy heating. They ring me if a bloody lightbulb goes.”

“Ah, well,” Aziraphale said. He gave up, and finished his glass of wine. “No rest for the wicked.”

Guy’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “What’d you say?”

“Speaking of wickedness,” Sarah said quickly, “you know, we almost didn’t take this house because of the name?”

It was a bit of a non sequitur, Aziraphale thought. A clumsy segue if ever he’d heard one, and he was no stranger to them. He felt a strange sensation: something hot building in his nose and throat, and then he looked into Sarah’s desperate eyes, and whatever it was was washed away. “Hext House?”

“Yes – Hexed House.” Sarah’s gratitude was visible. “I thought it might mean a curse had been put on it, with it being so old.”

“I can put your mind at ease with regards to that at least. It’s a surname – the surname of the original commissioner. I looked into the history of the place before we moved. Hext is a Midlands surname. It’s a rather nice pun too; it’s an old dialect word meaning ‘highest’ as well, and we’re at the top of a hill! So, it’s a perfectly innocent name.”

Unlike his own.

“…story of it?” Sarah was asking.

“I’m sorry, my dear, what was that?”

“She said, did you look into the history of the house?” Guy said loudly.

“Oh, right. Yes, I did. The original house was built in the early 16th century, but a large part of it was destroyed in the Civil War. It was almost totally rebuilt in the 18th century, and when the owner died suddenly in the mid-19th century it went to a niece. She’s whom we owe the walled garden to, and her husband was a Hext from Shropshire.”

He was proud of Shropshire. The Paradise of Powys, they used to call it, when it was Welsh. The views from the top of the Long Mynd were stunning, but Aziraphale had always loved the little stream that fell from the Boiling Well and cut down through Ashes Hollow, under the trees with the lambs and the ferns all around: quiet and gentle, winding and meandering, sparkling in shallow pools on the smooth stones…

Another place Heaven would have destroyed without a thought. He’d lived there as a hermit for a very happy decade, dropping in to help young Milburga with the harvest. Wininicas, it was called then. “ _’Tis time, I think, by Wenlock town the golden broom should blow_ … Wininicas – the white place. Limestone. Limestone would be much better for boundary stones.”

“I think you need some sleep,” Crowley said suddenly. “I’m sorry – he didn’t sleep last night. Kept saying he heard whispering.”

“Whispering?” said Sarah.

“Yeah. Bad dreams – first night in a new house. Aziraphale, we should go.”

“You can’t,” said Guy. “Sarah’s made Eton Mess. Sarah, go on, bring the pudding out.”

“Sorry – sorry! I was thinking out loud,” Aziraphale said. “Can I help?”

“No, not at all – I’ll be one sec.”

“No,” said Guy. “No, I could never have done what you City boys do, not with the old ball and chain waiting at home.”

Aziraphale frowned in confusion. He was chained to the tracks in front of his own train of thought – if it was a train at all, instead of billiard balls clacking off each other. Right, yes- “Ball and chain?”

“Yeah – you know. Chain around your leg with one of those big metal balls on the end?”

“I know, but they were ever so uncomfortable. Why do you have one? Why would you voluntarily wear one, they were awful…” Crowley was making a _face_ at him. Aziraphale knew from long experience that behind his sunglasses he’d be trying to tell him to _shut up_ with his eyes.

It was probably a human sex thing. That would explain it. Oh, sugar.

“I mean, if- if- if a man – or woman! – wanted to wear one, in their own home, well, that’s, there are other chains that might be better, I mean, those old manacles would be terrible for tetanus if you could die from it-“

“No, I mean the wife,” Guy said, jerking his thumb towards the kitchen as Sarah re-emerged carrying a tray of bowls.

Aziraphale was suddenly carried to a stone cell. The air was thick with terror, horror, and _excitement_ ; it was thick with the screams and the jeers of the crowd. They pressed on him more than the smell or the stones did, or the manacles around his wrists. They were heavy. They were cold. They were awkwardly shaped, and blistered the small protruding bones of his wrists.

But he remembered the burst of joy when he heard Crowley’s drawling, sardonic voice. The light of realising that Crowley was _there_ , had somehow heard his fear and come. For _him_. And, then, the warmth at the shocking sight of him – lounging, sprawling obscenely, in his black stockings and coat the colour of blood spilt by moonlight. And how with a snap of Crowley’s fingers the manacles and chains had fallen from his wrists, and the sound of them hitting the floor was the sound of one being in the whole universe caring about him.

Aziraphale sat up very straight, and his throat and nose felt hot again. “What an unkind thing to say about your wife.”

Guy’s mouth fell open. He raised his eyebrows. “It’s a _joke_.”

“It’s a nasty joke.”

“Aziraphale,” Crowley said, and Aziraphale looked at him. “It’s a joke.”

He wanted to tell Crowley that there was _no love_ here, that such a joke would be dangerous even with its edges cushioned by mounds and mounds of love. But he couldn’t say that, so he just frowned at Crowley instead.

“It’s all right,” said Sarah. She gently placed a bowl in front of Aziraphale. “It is. Our joke.”

Aziraphale studied the tablecloth. _Had_ he so misread Guy and Sarah’s relationship? Was it the complacency that had made him suddenly so furious, rather than any chivalrous instinct? Merely being _friends_ had been enough for Heaven and Hell to want to kill Crowley and himself…

Whatever it was, he’d been foolish for following it. Everyone knew that his instincts were not to be trusted. “Then I apologise. I’m… not the best at reading…”

He trailed off.

“Social stuff,” Crowley finished for him. “Everything’s much easier written down, right?”

Aziraphale smiled. “Right.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am still absolutely destroyed by work, I'm afraid - and also by an idea for a historical/Biblical one-shot which I am desperate to write so I can think about Hext House again. Hope you are all very well! <3

_“What the Heaven was that?”_ It was on the tip of his tongue. It longed to be said, as Crowley unlocked their front door. _“What the Heaven was that?”_

He didn’t ask it. Because if he asked, Aziraphale would deny knowing what he was even referring to, and then it would just be lie upon lie about how Aziraphale was fine, absolutely ticketty-fucking-boo.

The table was still covered in sheets of paper, and the new stone-carving tools were in a pile on the sofa.

Aziraphale turned the deadbolt to the left, then to the right. _“What was what?”_ he’d ask, and Crowley could imagine it in perfect detail. The way he’d focus on the lock, the miserable tightness around the eyes, the high-pitched strain in his voice.

So instead of _“What the Heaven was that?”_ he said, “Aziraphale, it’s locked.”

Aziraphale turned it back and forth again. “I know. I was just checking. Can’t be too careful…”

“It’s fucking locked.” Crowley ground his teeth together. “Even if it wasn’t – like a deadbolt’s going to give Hastur a moment’s hesitation. Or Gabriel.”

Aziraphale clicked the bolt one more time. He stretched out his fingers. Then he twisted his hands together. Crowley watched him deciding what to say.

Aziraphale opened his mouth, and then he closed it. “You’re right.”

So, he went to the dining table, and sat down again, and pulled the sheets of paper towards him.

“I’m going to bed,” Crowley snarled. He barely knew why he was so angry.

“It’s only half ten,” Aziraphale said, and at least he was looking up from the stupid fucking Hebrew. “I thought we could have a drink… No. You’re right. I have to get this finished before we can relax.”

That was not what Crowley had said at all. Swallowing the feeling he couldn’t name was like swallowing lava, and he climbed upstairs without another word.

*

Crowley, invisible, leant against the wall in the Edwards’ kitchen while Sarah did the washing up and Guy sat at the table, gesturing with a can of Fosters.

“Why they even _wanted_ to move here… It’s hardly their _scene_ , is it?”

“I don’t know,” Sarah said. She placed a plate on the rack.

“They’ll move out eventually – they’ll get tired of the country. Not enough fancy restaurants and cocktail bars and nightclubs for them around here. Then we can knock down that brick monstrosity down the middle of the garden…”

Crowley nearly gave himself away by laughing. Oh, Guy wanted _their_ house? That was delicious. To the victor the spoils.

“I think they’re nice. I hope they stay.”

“The guy, Tony, he was all right-“

“The guy? They’re both _guys_. They’re both _men_.”

“Yeah, you can’t exactly miss it.”

Sarah scrubbed a clean plate angrily. “So what do you mean, ‘the guy’?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yes, I do! I know exactly what you mean,” Sarah said. She dropped a plate into the sink and turned around. “And Hannah knows exactly what you mean.”

“I haven’t said anything to Hannah!”

“You _do_! You make all these little comments, constantly. That’s why she won’t visit us.”

Guy was sitting up straight now. “Did she tell you that?”

“She doesn’t need to. She’s my daughter. I know. That’s why she was so upset about us moving here.”

“She didn’t want to be away from her friends, that’s all.”

“She didn’t want to be away from her friends and have to deal with you. She’s not visited since we moved in.”

“Yeah, good! It’s the middle of flipping term time – what’s the point in me paying all her fees up front if she spends half the term coming back here to hold your hand?”

“That’s another thing you do! Constantly mentioning the fees, holding it over her head instead of letting her take out the loan-“

“And saddle her with debt? Do you even know how interest rates work? Do you?”

“I know that she’s in debt to _you_ now, and you mention it all the time! She wanted the loan, same as everyone else in her year-“

“Because she doesn’t understand anything about money! She’s never wanted for anything in her life!”

“She’s not _free_ , Guy! That’s why she won’t come out to you. Because of all these little comments!”

“She hasn’t come out because she knows it’s a phase. It’s something that she’s saying to fit in with her bloody friends. That’s all. Once she gets a job she’ll settle down.”

“With a woman, I hope.”

“You hope? Jesus. It’s a _trend_ , Sarah. It’s trendy these days, and kissing girls in some gay club where all her friends go gets her attention from boys. If she was actually, properly gay, we’d know. We’re her parents. Like your new best friend. Born a poof. Probably wearing his mother’s shoes as soon as he could walk.”

Sarah’s face had gone bright red. “I’m going upstairs. You can finish the dishes,” she said, with a brave but unsuccessful stab at dignity, Crowley thought. He flattened himself against the wall, literally.

“Go on, ring Hannah and complain about me,” Guy said. He crushed the empty can, folding it with aggression for the recycling. “Tell her she can have her own Pride party here next summer, if she’s still a lesbian by then!”

Sarah stamped up the stairs, and Guy threw the can into the recycling box.

Crowley made it bounce out onto the floor, and rock back and forth for several seconds too long. He waited until Guy noticed, then stopped the can at an angle at which it was physically impossible for a crushed can to balance.

Guy stood up, frowning, to get a closer look. Crowley blew a fuse with a click of his fingers, plunging the ground floor into darkness, and melted back into the walls.

*

Aziraphale was busy. He was always busy. Since they’d moved in, he had been busy.

For two days, he didn’t read. He didn’t eat or drink, save for when Crowley bought him some tea or biscuits. He had found some chalk slabs _somewhere_ – the South Downs were made of chalk, literally, but it didn’t exactly mean there were handy flat slabs all over the place – and during the daylight hours the damp, cold air of their garden was filled with the unmistakable, slightly metallic _clink-clink-clink_ of chisel on stone.

The infuriating thing, thought Crowley, was that chalk was an absolutely terrible material for boundary markers. Abysmal. But Aziraphale said they would do the trick until the granodiorite blocks he had ordered arrived.

And then he would carve them all out all over again.

There were only a few hours of daylight every day; when it became too dim to carve, Aziraphale settled himself at the table, working out more incantations for his bowls. At the close of their fourth day in Hext House, Crowley had had enough.

“We’re going out,” Crowley said. “Dinner. Come on.”

Aziraphale paused in the middle of some compass and ruler work. He didn’t remove his glasses, nor did his give up his placement of some magically significant circles. “Dinner? Oh, no thank you, my dear.”

“It’s not for you. It’s for me. It’s Halloween.”

(Crowley wasn’t going to haunt a house on _Halloween_. That was just gauche.)

This at least evoked a small frown. “You don’t usually bother with it. You said it’s American.”

“No, _you_ said it’s American. And it’s different now I’m retired. Now I can enjoy it.”

The corner of Aziraphale’s mouth quirked up. “I suppose you are a _spooky_ fan…”

“Exactly. And _you_ need to be a good friend and celebrate my culture with me.”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes, but he finally relinquished the ruler and compass. “You _hate_ your culture.”

“Sign of a good culture, if you slag it off all the time. This is like… Saint Patrick’s Day, but for demons. Not fair for Saint Patrick to get a massive day when he was such a prick and not demons.”

Aziraphale was smiling. “All right. I have no idea _where_ , but I’m sure we’ll find somewhere with a turnip for you.”

“A pumpkin, Aziraphale. It’s pumpkins these days.”

“I refuse to wear orange, I’m sorry, but I have a couple of spooky bits from when you made me do that haunting in Edinburgh.”

“No, don’t change, it’s fine,” Crowley said, but he felt oddly touched. “You kept that cloak?”

“It’s an excellent wool cloak! I wore it whenever it was raining… While you were asleep.”

Something softened in Crowley’s shoulders. “Did you?” It felt good, to know something of his had kept Aziraphale warm, even when they weren’t speaking. Then he snorted. “Did you have to get it hemmed?”

Aziraphale gasped in outraged. “Excuse me! You’re not that much taller than me, you know – no, I did not need to have it hemmed!”

“So you just let a foot of it drag after you? On _those_ streets?”

“A foot-! Crowley!”

Crowley, who was slowly growing taller, smiled innocently. “What?”

“Stop it!”

“Stop what?” His head touched the ceiling; he bent forwards to loom over Aziraphale. “Not doing nothing.”

“You are completely ridiculous,” Aziraphale said as he unhooked his coat from beside the door. “If the wind changes you’ll get stuck like that, and then _I’ll_ be the one that has to drive us to dinner.”

Crowley shrunk again. Some things were too scary even for Halloween.

*

Crowley had asked Aziraphale what his preference for food was, and Aziraphale said he had none. Crowley, with his long-honed demonic instinct for sensing what people wanted, was extremely perturbed to discover that this was the truth. Aziraphale genuinely had no preference.

They found a Thai restaurant in the centre of Portsmouth, far enough away from the main street to risk parking the Bentley. Crowley improved the house wine, and they were deep into their third bottle.

With every drink, Aziraphale became more like himself. He relaxed, and smiled at Crowley’s jokes, instead of staring at the wall with blank eyes, tapping out Morse code on the table.

Crowley pushed a bowl of chocolate ice cream across the table. Aziraphale twiddled the black flag with a skeleton on it which had adorned the pudding. “D’you think this was for pirates? Originally?”

“Very teeny tiny pirates,” Crowley said. “That was so much fun. The piracy.”

“I was never a pirate. I was a hostage.”

“You were the best pirate on my crew. Everyone on that boat loved you.” He studied the angel thoughtfully. “’Ziraphale. All the magic. You never did all the magic and wards and shit for the bookshop.”

“Course not,” Aziraphale said, pouring the remnant of the bottle into Crowley’s glass. “Heavens, no – gosh. Can you imagine Gabriel’s face, if he came up against a ward? Doesn’t bear thinking about. Had to be available at all times. For surprise inspections. Mezuzah would have caused trouble in most places, and the Shaddai’s only for enemies. Weren’t my enemies then…”

Crowley thought that this wasn’t quite true, but let it slide. “No demon wards. Nothing _traditionally apotropaic._ ”

“Well, no. Couldn’t risk keeping you out,” Aziraphale said. He chopped at the ice cream half-heartedly. “And… nakedness, isn’t it?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Naked. No sword. No-“ Aziraphale flapped his hands together in front of his body. “No covering-nakedness wings. Defenceless. ‘S’important.”

“’S fucking stupid, that’s what it is.”

“Important. Wasn’t allowed. Could you imagine Gabriel’s face?” Aziraphale said again. “Thought Hell was the same? Hastur and Ligur got in. That’s why I gave you the holy water.”

“Yeah.” Crowley considered this. “Would probably have been a mite suspicious. Having angelic wards around the place.”

“And I’d need to be there, to set them.” Aziraphale sighed, and took a mouthful of ice cream. “Couldn’t do that. Never wanted to go to your flat.”

Crowley felt hurt blossom behind his ribs. “Oh. Okay.” He had half a mind to take the ice cream back. “Didn’t know you felt so strongly about it…”

Aziraphale nodded. “Much safer. Not knowing. Then I couldn’t betray you.”

“Wait.” Crowley put down his glass of wine. “What?”

“Heaven. If Heaven wanted to know where you were. I would never have _willingly_ ,” Aziraphale said, and suddenly reached out his hand to touch the back of Crowley’s. “I’d have _lied_. But they… they have ways. Can reach in. To see if you’re telling the truth or not. Get Raziel to do it, he can find a secret out quick as… quick as houses.”

“Houses aren’t quick. You mean ducks,” Crowley’s mouth said, while his brain tried to reboot. “That’s why you never came ‘round? To keep me safe?”

“I mean, you also never _invited_ me,” Aziraphale said, and smiled. “But that’s why I never asked. Just. Just wanted to keep you safe…”

“Thus the spell stuff too?”

Aziraphale moved his spoon back and forth in the semi-liquid ice cream. “I know it looks a little mad,” he said suddenly. “The gematria.”

“Yep,” Crowley said, hastily filling their glasses again with a click of his fingers.

“I feel… Doesn’t matter,” Aziraphale said. “I should sober up.”

“No, no, no,” Crowley said. “Halloween. My night. Drink. Go on.”

“Urgh,” Aziraphale said, but obeyed. “Mmm. I feel… We’re safe. Right? I know that. Safe and free! When the spells and everything are done we can just _be_ , without worrying and… But I feel… I feel like there’s something caught, in between my throat and my heart. And it grows when I think. The wine dissolves it, but it hardens all day. Fear. It feels like fear, but there’s no reason for us to fear any more, so it… So I thought that when I finish the wards and the spells and- and all that. Maybe then it’ll go.”

Crowley felt a lump in his own throat. “That’s what you need?”

Aziraphale nodded. “Have to keep you safe. I keep thinking about angels. Angels pulling you into that van, and I couldn’t get there in time. I tried, but… And then I saw what Hell would do to you.”

“And I saw Heaven.” Out of context it sounded like a fucking… lyric from a romantic song, Crowley thought, the wine making his mind meander. “Okay. Whatever help you need – you’re better with all the formal human stuff, but… I can drive to the shops. Back to that DIY place.”

“That was monstrous, wasn’t it?” Aziraphale said. He finished his wine. “We’ll need to write out the bowls. Test them. Angel, demon, then... then the exceptions for me and you. Destroy the others… I don’t know what to write them out with. With what to write them out? Prepositions? Anyway, all the bowls these days are glazed, paint or ink just... slide right off.”

“Ah, see, there I can definitely help,” Crowley said. He held out his hand with a flourish, and in it appeared a small glass bottle topped with a long, metal spike.

“Scratch it on?” Aziraphale asked.

“Need to have words with your manicurist. Louboutin, Khol. _Nail varnish_ , angel.”

“… Louboutin incantation bowls?” Aziraphale said. His incredulous smile was widening, his lips the colour of crushed berries from the wine, and Crowley was drunk enough that the desire to kiss that grin was almost irresistible.

“Of course. I have _standards_ ,” Crowley said, and Aziraphale, finally, laughed.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last couple of chapters have been hellish to write, so I thought it was better to post them and move on. I owe many of you replies to comments and I will do that first thing in the morning! <3
> 
> "Pulsei denura" are lashes of fire, the standard punishment for angels who step out of line in the Talmud.

British Summer Time had ended, not that it had much effect on Crowley and Aziraphale, who had lived for thousands of years without clocks and mainly thought of watches as a chance to indulge in fashion and the human penchant for clever, fiddly little machines. They were retired now, after all, and any missions or Apocalypses which necessitated a sharper appreciation of passing time were, for a while, behind them.

Aziraphale transformed the dining room into a studio for his apotropaic magic. Within a fortnight he’d carved all the chalk boundary stones, and he placed these at specific points around the property where ley lines converged, or at gematrically significant paces in the cardinal directions, and at the corners of their own legally-defined land. Then he returned to the incantation bowls until the granodiorite arrived.

“Please,” he asked Crowley. “I’ll be outside the whole time. You won’t be in for a minute – just long enough to see if you can break through the spell on your own.”

Crowley looked across the table of Sainsbury’s Basics paper bowls, all written with Aziraphale’s incantations. “I thought the whole point was to make ones I’m immune to?”

“And me. I’ve written out ones for angels too,” Aziraphale said. “I need to make sure they work, and then I can add the codas and fill in the gaps for our names in the spells, see? Then if we step over the _same_ bowls which sucked us in and they _don’t_ , hopefully it means that they’ll work for any angel or demon apart from us.”

His heart was pounding in his chest as Crowley glared at the bowls. “I’ll go to the shop afterwards,” he offered. “Buy some Wagon Wheels.”

This, at least, made Crowley smile. “ _You_ like Wagon Wheels.”

“Dairy Milk?”

“Still you.”

Aziraphale pretended to think of something Crowley could be tempted by. “Sudoku book?”

Crowley laughed. “Pass.”

“ _Hello!_ magazine?” Aziraphale said.

“Fine, fine, fine.” Crowley was finally grinning back, and he stood up. “Which one first?”

Aziraphale placed one of the paper bowls on the floor, bottom up. “It should be strong enough to suck you right in.” He tried his best to hide his nausea from Crowley: if this didn’t work, it was back to the drawing board. His heart beat in his ears like the waves of the sea. He felt an abyss within him, not below him. It gaped. It waited, yawning wide.

“I hate you,” Crowley said, casually, and the abyss sent lightning up Aziaphale’s spine.

Aziraphale knew that this was Crowley joking. That this was their usual banter. But part of him still worried; part of him still leapt in fear that it was true.

And beneath the rational, and beneath the insecure, lay something rock-solid and certain, as cold as iron. It was fine if Crowley hated him. Aziraphale deserved his hatred. Aziraphale was _guilty_. And Crowley had every right to hate him, but it didn’t matter if he did, as long as he was alive to do it.

Crowley stepped over the paper bowl and vanished. Aziraphale felt sick with worry as he tried to count down the seconds, but the hand in which he held his pocket watch shook so much he could barely see when the minute was up.

He picked up the bowl, and Crowley grew back to his normal shape and height like a shaped balloon being blown up. “Fucking hate that.”

Aziraphale grilled him about the inside of the bowl, making notes: did it feel hot or cold, did he swirl or was he caught in the centre, were there any bumps which threw him out or weakened the spell?

“It was airtight. It was perfect, angel. Makes me glad you were on my side all those years.”

A little of Aziraphale’s anxiety dissipated, replaced with the warmth of tenderness. He smiled at Crowley then looked away, unable to stop. “I’m glad. Do you mind trying the others?”

Crowley made a big show of saying that he _did_ , but acquiesced. Two spells were tossed out as being a little weak – “95% efficiency is fine, Aziraphale, stop _worrying_ ” – but the other five were all successes.

“Why do you even need the different incantations? First one worked fine.”

“Just back-ups, in case they manage to break the first. I want to find a way to combine both spells in the same bowl…”

“Just test the angel one for the moment,” Crowley said. His pupils were unusually wide. “Let’s get it _done_. Then you can finally relax. Which means _I_ can relax.”

“Yes. All right,” Aziraphale said. He knew that he ought to be more worried about Hell. Hell was more dangerous. Heaven was… less likely to be personal about things, weren’t they? And yet it wasn’t the thought of Hell that always occurred first.

He placed the angel bowl upside down on the floor, and stepped over it.

The effects were instantaneous. The first was overwhelming gravity: as though a hole had opened up beneath his feet, and he had accelerated to his terminal velocity instantly. The second was the air being both squeezed from his lungs and sucked out in the same moment. The third was unbelievable pressure, forcing atom in his human body together, every quark and lepton, to make him small enough to fit within the bowl.

Smashing through the top of the paper bowl felt like being hit by a bullet train, and then he was swirling in the darkness, choking underneath an inexorable power of numbers, inarguable, unbreakable. It was a maelstrom in a dizzying grey semi-light, broken with the pitch black of Hebrew letters, trapped above a dark forest which Aziraphale realised after several futile gasps must be the fibres of the carpet. He tried to swim downwards, in search of a gap, but the force of his own spell was irresistible.

The world turned upside down.

Aziraphale felt a painful _gaping_ throughout his entire body; he choked down air, inflating his lungs again, and started coughing. “Golly!”

“Not nice, is it?” Crowley said, looking smug. “Don’t worry. Only another six to go.”

By lunchtime, Crowley and Aziraphale sat at the table, sharing a bottle of brandy between them. Crowley had insisted, seeing Aziraphale after the penultimate bowl. The rejects were scored through, and Aziraphale said that he would burn them.

“I can see why you hated Rav Shmuel so much,” Aziraphale said, holding his brandy with both hands. “I’m sorry for laughing.”

Crowley snorted. He’d run foul of an incantation bowl in Nippur in the seventh century, trying to persuade a rabbi’s daughter to run off with her boyfriend. It had been three hours before Aziraphale went in search for him after a missed drinks appointment, and another one before Aziraphale had been able to persuade the rabbi that Crowley was a nuisance but harmless. “It’s all right. If you hadn’t saved me, I’d still be in the bloody thing. And yours is way worse. In Nippur I was mostly just sat there.”

“I used that bowl as a starting point. I thought it must be a very good one, if it managed to hold you.”

Crowley laughed. “Flatterer. I don’t exactly rate on the Hellish power spectrum.”

“Maybe not in terms of brute force, but you’re the cleverest person I know, Heaven or Hell. Or Earth, for that matter,” said Aziraphale, and blinked in surprise when Crowley choked on his brandy.

“Don’t be a prick.”

“I’m not! It’s the truth,” Aziraphale said. “You always have been.”

Crowley raised an eyebrow. “If you’re trying to butter me up for round two…”

“I’m not trying to butter you up! I’m trying to give you an honest compliment…” The brandy suddenly roiled in his stomach, and Aziraphale put his glass down. “I must be a very poor friend indeed if I compliment you so little that you think it’s a… a _wile_.”

“No, I know,” Crowley said. He looked concerned. “I was joking, angel. Are you all right?”

“Oh. Oh, of course. Fine. Just fine.”

Crowley looked, oddly, even more concerned. “And you’re not a poor friend. If you weren’t a good friend I’d be under a doorstep in Nippur, wouldn’t I? Wherever Nippur is now.”

“Iraq.”

“You’re just discombobulated from the bowl. Both are.” Crowley watched until Aziraphale took another sip of brandy. “Do you want me to walk to the shop with you?”

“No, no, it’s all right,” Aziraphale said. “I know you wanted to do something in the garden while the weather holds. I’ll go now.”

He decided to wait until that evening to add the exception coda and their names into the bowls; they were both still shaken, and Aziraphale had promised Crowley a _Hello!_ magazine and a Dairy Milk to himself. Or Wagon Wheels, if the village shop had them.

Aziraphale didn’t mind the walk to the village. It was only a mile, and while the sky was overcast and the air was cold, it wasn’t raining. He felt a strange relief, to be away from the boundary stones and incantation bowls. He couldn’t do much while he was walking. Nothing to be done. He could just put them to the side for one hour…

Unless this was the hour they attacked. When he was out of the house, and Crowley was alone, with no one to protect him.

He stopped on the side of the road, hands clenched in his pockets.

Two cars went by. Aziraphale watched as the passenger in one craned her head to look at him. But he felt rooted to the spot.

The rising tide of panic became unbearable, and he ran back to Hext House, keys in his hand.

Crowley was in the garden, planting tulip bulbs. “That was quick – you all right?”

Aziraphale smiled weakly. “I forgot my- forgot my scarf! Have it now!” Crowley was planting tulips. Crowley wanted them to have tulips. Aziraphale felt sick. “Though, I don’t know if we really need-“

“Wait, wait, before I forget,” Crowley said. “If they have it, can you buy some string? And we need more milk.”

“String and milk,” Aziraphale said helplessly. “String and milk. Of course.”

It took half an hour to walk into the village; he nearly turned back twice. He was going to have to buy some kind of _mobile telephone_ so that he could check that Crowley was safe. The thought sent spiders under his skin.

The shop was too small to justify baskets, but Aziraphale had a string shopping bag. He found milk and string first, then looked at the shelf of sweets. No Wagon Wheels, so he was trying to decide between a Lion bar and a Milky Way when he saw it. The top copy of _The Guardian_ shifted in the corner of his eye, and became _The Celestial Observer_.

Aziraphale’s heart sank. But of course, yesterday had been Shabbat, so today was the first day of the week… He’d lost track of them, somehow. He steeled himself for the blow, but still felt it: he was on the front page again, as he had been for the last…. How many weeks, since the Apocalypse? Twelve?

The paper contained a sixteen page spread of newly released surveillance footage from the thirteenth century. The paper had been making its way back through the centuries, and Earth Surveillance had been more than happy to give them whatever they wanted. Or _The Celestial Observer_ was more than happy to print whatever Heaven wanted. In either case, this week there was the usual medley. A page dissecting an image of him “mercilessly bombarding waterfowl with some kind of weapon.” Several pictures of him drinking, four of him eating (one with an information box on what hazelnuts are, another with suggestions for what to do if you think someone in your choir might be addicted to human food). And there, spread over the centrefold, he and Crowley in Karakorum, the two of them simultaneously making the same disgusted face at a mouthful of Mongol Arkhi. There was another of him and Crowley, both laughing, under a headline about their _SORDID AFFAIR_ ; it took Aziraphale a second, but then he remembered where they were. That must have been when they’d met in the back of one of Thomas Aquinas’ lectures.

The most embarrassing photograph was one of him alone, though. He was in Baghdad, kneeling in what had once been the main courtyard of the House of Wisdom. His face was streaked with dirt and tears, the tracks visible even in the black-and-white print of Heavenly footage, and his mouth was slack in a wail of grief.

He looked wild. Filthy. Out of control with despair. There was nothing angelic about him.

He looked human.

It was accompanied by a wall of text about his mental state, with several choice quotes from an archangel who would remain anonymous about how weird Aziraphale was. And had always been, so it wasn’t even a case of being warped by Earth. Aziraphale didn’t know whether to take that as a compliment or not. He thought he should, but he didn’t.

It ended with the usual all-page advert of a stern Gabriel giving the warning that any attempt to contact the apostate Aziraphale would be punished with sixty pulsei denura, and the now-standard note by the paper itself that any sightings of Aziraphale or Crowley, or any stories of past encounters, would be handsomely rewarded.

A waste of a perfectly good _Guardian_ , really. Not that he had time to read the newspaper, not when he had to study what Heaven was saying about him – and do it all without Crowley noticing. Whatever Heaven was saying about Aziraphale, Hell was surely saying worse things about Crowley.

Aziraphale picked out _Hello!_ and read the restaurant reviews in _Tatler_ while he was by the magazines. He retained absolutely nothing.

He was halfway back to the house when he heard a woman’s voice behind him. “Aziraphale!”

It wasn’t like when they cornered him in Soho; this time, he was prepared. He brought his fists up to shield his chest and spun into a fighting stance.

Sarah, dressed in jogging gear, stopped and stared at him.

“Oh.” Aziraphale swallowed, then remembered to lower his fists. “Sarah! Hello – ever so sorry.”

“Are you all right?”

“Yes! I don’t know why everyone keeps asking that; I’m perfectly fine, my dear, absolutely fine. Please, I don’t want to- to ruin your time, or whatever jogging involves.”

She smiled at him. “It’s all right; I’m well behind anyway. Are you walking back?”

“Yes – yes. Just popped to the shop. It’s a lovely village, isn’t it? A lovely walk.”

“Rather nippy, once you stop running,” Sarah said, and laughed out loud when Aziraphale started to remove his coat. “No, no!”

“Please,” Aziraphale said, and handed it to her. “You’ve not even got a jumper on. Besides, I really don’t mind the cold. I find it rather refreshing.”

“Really?” Sarah smiled for a second, and then put Aziraphale’s coat on. “Thank you. Oh, and thank you for your note.”

Aziraphale smiled back. “You’re very welcome. It was a lovely dinner.”

“Ah. Well. Thank you for saying so at least. … half of my friends won’t come round anymore.”

“Guy won’t chase us away,” Aziraphale promised. “It takes far worse to scare Crowley and myself.”

“You should spend a night on our side,” Sarah said. “Last night the fire alarm kept going off at twenty-six minutes past the hour. Every hour. Did it wake you?”

Aziraphale couldn’t remember hearing any alarm, but he had been knee-deep in some complicated arithmetic all night, measuring spaces in the bowls in relation to the width of his lettering. “No, no, must have slept right through. Every hour?”

“Until sunrise. I turned it on again this morning and it’s been fine… maybe it was just a bug. Resetting itself… But it’s an old analogue one. Just sensor and battery…”

“Maybe it’s like those _pips_ , telling you to change the battery?” Aziraphale said. Once he’d realised what the sound in his bookshop had been he kept it for three years; it annoyed the customers. “Saying that it needs replacing?”

“Yes…” Sarah said. “Yes, you’re probably right. That’s what it’ll be. Guy says I’m just superstitious.”

“There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio… But if that’s the only thing I shouldn’t worry.”

“Only thing worth mentioning. The rest is just the creaks of an old house. Odd draughts… But it looks very cheerful, or it will, when the roses come back. On your side…”

“Crowley’s ever so excited to grow roses,” Aziraphale said. “You should ask him about the front of yours. Or wisteria – wisteria’s so lovely.”

“I will.” They had come to their shared driveway. “It was nice to see you.”

“And you. I’ve been ever so busy with some matters, but in a couple of days they should all be done. It would be lovely if you came for tea,” Aziraphale said. “With or without your husband.”

Sarah grinned. “I might. I’ve been dying to see what you’ve been carving on those stone blocks.”

“Oh, just some Hebrew. You know. _God bless our house_ , that sort of thing,” Aziraphale lied awkwardly. Not that Sarah would understand what was meant by _We hold the fire and the water._


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will try to reply to comments over the next couple of days; thank you to all of you! <3 The next chapter will probably be a way off - this week is packed with work duties and funeral duties - and writing about dysfunction and mental illness isn't much of a escape. I might take a break from Hext House and write a tropey AU or a historical one-shot or something. Apologies in advance for the delay!

Crowley gazed upon his newest present to himself like a proud parent. Or Michelangelo taking in the Sistine Chapel for the first time. It was sleek, a shining black; it looked like a prop from a sci-fi film, or like it had fallen off an American spy-plane.

He turned the lever, and the dark space-pod turned with it. Inside, the mixture of rotting apples and sawdust and several black puddings rolled over and over itself, and Crowley allowed himself a single wiggle of glee. He’d made a normal compost heap, obviously, as well as a leaf mould cage and a wormery (more for snacking than for gardening, truth be told), but humans had found a way to make composting ten times more complicated and expensive and far less efficient, and so Crowley was obliged to buy the most needlessly dear rotating compost tumbler on the market. “You’re so stupid,” he murmured lovingly, and gave it another turn just for the heaven of it.

Aziraphale had tried to take the fun out of the whole thing by saying what a lovely thing it was to make gardening easier for people with disabilities, or living in a small place, and Crowley hadn’t talked to him for a day. But even the angel couldn’t ruin this for him.

“It looks like it’s going to rain!” said angel called from the kitchen. “Don’t get wet – I’ve made you a cup of tea!”

Crowley grinned. Aziraphale ruining his morning by making the sugary tea Crowley liked, and fussing about pneumonia as though Crowley could catch it, and obliviously telling him about poor Sarah’s disturbed sleep.

He’d raised the containers onto pot feet, he’d pruned the roses on the front of the house, he’d laid the winter bedding and planted the tulip bulbs, and now it was just a matter of sending the odd gust across the garden and depositing any fallen leaves into the mould cage.

The first fat drops were beginning to fall, so Crowley stepped inside and took his sunglasses off. There was his cup of stars, as Aziraphale called it, indigo and violet and studded with constellations, telling him that the tea was hot and freshly made.

“Hands,” Aziraphale called from the living room, and Crowley rolled his eyes before going to the sink. The water was warm, and Aziraphale’s brown chunk of Aleppo soap foamed nicely. Aziraphale had been using it for two thousand years, whenever he could get it. It probably smelt fresh, but for the last fortnight, whenever Crowley came in from the garden, all he could smell was nail varnish.

One bowl took Aziraphale a day and a night to complete, in between the meditation and the painstaking writing and the calls upon the name of God, and he had been fasting for the last two weeks of November. Privately Crowley thought that angels _technically_ couldn’t fast, as they didn’t _technically_ need food, but he'd tucked the rather uncharitable thought away the first time Aziraphale had made a single cup of tea for Crowley and put it out on the counter with a biscuit for when he came in from the garden.

Aziraphale normally really wasn’t one for prayer – he tried to avoid it as much as possible, on the off chance anyone was actually listening – but maybe it was due to making the bowls the human way? Crowley sipped his sugary tea, and walked through into their little living room.

And he saw the flicker. And he heard the _crack._

“What the fuck are you doing?!”

Aziraphale looked up in surprise, pulling his hand back from the fire which was crackling merrily in their fireplace. “I’m burning the paper bowls-“

“You should have said!” Crowley slammed the star-mug down, sending hot tea all over the notes on the table. He reached forward to snatch the paper. “You should have let me do it!”

“Crowley!” Aziraphale said. “I can make a fire, you know.”

“Oh, I know – bloody brilliant you are at starting fires,” he snapped. His jaw was so tight his temples ached, and the bowls crumpled in his hand.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said again, but his voice was different now. Softer. He brushed his hands on his trousers, stood up with a small puff, and hugged him.

Crowley hissed. He stood perfectly stiff and still, every muscle hard with effort, crushing the paper bowls until they hurt his hand. And over Aziraphale’s shoulder the fire flickered in laughter at him.

“It’s all right, my dear,” Aziraphale said. The angel was a few inches shorter than he was, and Aziraphale’s head was tilted back to fit his chin on his shoulder.

Aziraphale smelt as he always did: soap and water, ozone, dust, the faint lingering scent of incense. No cologne. Damn, but he was good at hugging. Crowley couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Aziraphale hugging someone, but perhaps it was a general angelic trait, because despite the best efforts of both Crowley and the fire Crowley was relaxing. Aziraphale’s hand was warm and heavy in between his shoulderblades. He was _solid_. Not the blind and wavering spirit that had sat before him in the bar. And not- not nothing.

Crowley dropped the paper bowls, and clenched his fists in the cashmere of Aziraphale’s house-jacket. “It’s all right, dear boy,” Aziraphale said again, in that awful _understanding_ tone, and Crowley wanted to squeeze the breath out of him. Or just to hold him. Hold him tightly. And be held in return.

Aziraphale brought away one arm, and Crowley hissed again at the loss of it. A wave of a hand, and suddenly the fireplace was transformed into an iron stove, the fire caged within. Crowley saw it flare angrily through the little glass window, and then settle in submission. Aziraphale brought his hand back, but didn’t put it back around Crowley’s waist. Instead he brought it up, and cradled the back of Crowley’s head with his hand.

“Not fair,” Crowley said, and buried his face in Aziraphale’s shoulder.

“Well, you did say I’m a- a _bastard_ ,” Aziraphale said, and his hesitation over the swearword was even _worse_ , Satan save him. “I know now, for the future. And the stove will be lovely, we can put the kettle on it.”

“We’ve got a perfectly good electric one,” Crowley said into the cashmere. Aziraphale was now _rocking_ them, left to right, and Crowley could have fallen asleep right there, standing upright.

“Well, we can have two. Live a life of frivolous luxury.”

“When have you ever _not_ lived a life of frivolous luxury?” Crowley pulled back, and Aziraphale let him. “Sorry.”

“It’s quite all right, my dear,” said Aziraphale. “I must confess, Sarah next door has the same bathtub that… And it rather threw me.” Aziraphale’s hands were still warm on his elbows. “Why don’t we go out? Walk to the village, have a pub lunch?”

Crowley’s eyebrows shot up. “Seriously?”

Aziraphale hesitated, then visibly steeled himself, and nodded. “Yes. We’ve not gone out since Halloween.”

“What about your fast? The bowls?”

“We’ve got fourteen, that’s enough to do the ground floor at least. And I could murder a pie. Or cake. Well, not _murder_ , maybe perform some light vandalism or something.” Aziraphale smiled, and Crowley realised that the strange emotion written across his face was _embarrassment_. “You’ve been ever so patient with my worrying about the bowls.”

“I mean, they work, so… And you’re nearly done. Then we can properly relax.”

“Yes. Yes… Can you give me an hour, to place them? And could you burn the paper ones for me?”

Crowley sighed as Aziraphale dropped his hands. “Sure thing, angel.”

*

Aziraphale was regretting his offer well before they even left Hext House. Placing all the bowls took longer than an hour, as every one required a ruler and navigational compass to work out where and at which angle to submerge it upside down in a windowsill, or under the steps of the front and back doors.

The night was swiftly drawing in, and it was clear that they would be going to the pub for dinner rather than lunch. Crowley apparently didn’t much mind this, and even helped to place the bowls with a minimum of exaggerated sighs and wisecrackery.

Aziraphale was fretting before they left the driveway, and by the time they actually arrived at The King and Cakes pub he was wringing his hands. He couldn’t shake the thought that they had left the house unprotected – that they would return to find the place aflame, and Guy and Sarah’s blood would be on his hands. Or perhaps angels or demons would hide, and wait for Crowley to go up to bed, and attack him while he was complacent... “I’m really not hungry, if you’re not,” he said, “and if you are, I could buy something in the shop, I can cook it-“

“Nope,” said Crowley, and shoved him into a booth. “I’ll buy a bottle. You look at the menu.”

“What if someone’s-“

“You’ve rigged all the bowls with alarms, haven’t you? Calm down. It’s all fine.”

Crowley sauntered to the bar, and Aziraphale thought _hard_ at himself. _Crowley’s there. Crowley’s_ there _, so it’s fine – much better that you be with Crowley to protect him, instead of in the house writing more bowls. Much safer to be here. Much safer._

But Crowley would expect him to eat. Orthodox monks painting icons fasted, and God had often appreciated it. Look at that lovely girl Esther. Her taʿanith had gone down very well with the Almighty. God liked fasting. She answered Her human children’s prayers when they fasted… He needed every weapon in his arsenal to persuade Her to favour him and Crowley over Gabriel Her hero, Michael Her likeness, Uriel Her fire… What was he in comparison? An angel who asked Her to heal his strength and courage. His very name shouted out his brokenness and incompleteness. His weakness and cowardice. Before he had come into existence, God had seen him, and known him, and called him Aziraphale.

He had wondered, from time to time, with what name Crowley had been called into creation. He'd never asked, of course. And at the end of the day, did it particularly matter? Crowley had shaken off both his angelic and demonic names and chosen something new. In Hebrew, it evoked opposition and contrariness, or fate, or coolness. In French it was growth and wine. In Irish, hardiness and heroism. In English… Intelligence. Mischief. Playfulness.

What name would Aziraphale pick for himself, had he Crowley’s courage? He could think of nothing. The only things in his head were fear and guilt, guilt and fear – they swirled around in him a never-ending current. The fear that he would lose Crowley, to Heaven or to Hell, or in the face of Aziraphale himself; that one day Crowley would realise that he was neither so good as Crowley seemed to think he was, or so interesting. Guilt at how he had kept him at arm’s length, the distancing things he had said. The thousand times he’d swallowed his laughter or gratitude or affection, and thrown self-righteousness instead. Fear of God and guilt for his times of faithlessness or blame; guilt for betraying Heaven, guilt for his loyalty to Heaven.

The past drenched with guilt, heavy and sodden with it. The future frantically tearing itself apart in fear.

Crowley slammed a bottle of wine down in front of him and slid bonelessly into the nook, juggling two glasses. “Away with the fairies? Stop thinking in your gematria or I’m going to have to get you drunk.”

“I was thinking that perhaps I ought to wait until all the bowls-“

“Nope. No.” Crowley’s voice was light but very firm as he poured the wine into the glasses. “Stop thinking.”

“Not all of us find that as easy as you do.”

Crowley pointed his finger, and poked the centre of Aziraphale’s forehead. “Don’t think, drink.”

“I'm just thinking about the bowls-“

“If you don’t drink I will talk louDER AND LOUDER ABOUT-“

“Crowley!”

“THAT ORGY WE WENT TO IN-“

Aziraphale took a large mouthful of wine and glared at Crowley as he swallowed.

Crowley beamed. “There. Fast broken! Now look at the menu.”

“I’m going to have to space out the bowls differently when we get home, now.”

“That’s fine. We don’t need two per window anyway. Drink, go on,” Crowley said. His smile faltered a little. “I feel like I’ve been alone with a statue for the last fortnight.”

Aziraphale softened. He sighed, and opened the menu. “I’m sorry. I know it’s been dull.”

“No, it’s about safety, I get that. And I understand why you don’t want to give anyone any loopholes. But you can have one night off, angel, for- for _my_ sake.”

Aziraphale resolved to try. The wine helped, somehow; it tasted like vinegar, but it unknotted his stomach just a little. “As I’ve already broken it…” He patted his coat, looking for his reading glasses. “Oh, crumbs. I’ve left them on the table-“

“Aziraphale. You don’t need them. And it’s an ordinary pub menu.”

Tight. His chest felt _tight_. He tugged at his bow tie, and tried again to read the menu.

He got to the soups before his brain refused to go any further. He shook his head and put the menu down. “Fish and chips. The fish and chips look nice.”

Behind his sunglasses Crowley was probably narrowing his eyes suspiciously, but he got up and went back to the bar.

Aziraphale finished his glass of wine and poured another for himself. He should be relieved. The worst had happened. He’d been thrown out of Heaven – walked out, really. But now he knew that that wasn’t the worst thing. The worst thing would be to lose Crowley. Could he cope with the loss of Crowley if he had God? He could still feel Her love, burning in the heart of him. Could he cope with the loss of God if he had Crowley? As soon as he had assured himself that he could survive one, the other possibility reared, horrific.

He jerked out of his ruminations as Crowley sat down again, eyeing the bottle. “Picked the same. So, I’ve been meaning to ask…”

This was it. He didn't know what _it_ was, precisely, but terror shot up Aziraphale’s back like lightning; if he hadn’t been sitting down, his legs would have buckled. He felt ice-cold. “Oh?”

“Yeah, you remember when we went for dinner next door, and they were asking you about the history of the house?”

“Yes…”

“You said that in the 1800s the owner died suddenly?”

“Oh, right. Yes. Yes...” Aziraphale drank some more wine. “I didn’t want to go into more detail in front of Sarah, it wouldn’t have allayed her worries about the house and the name.”

“No?” Crowley leant on the table, chin in his hand. “Something gruesome, was it?”

“Certainly very scandalous. The name _is_ innocent, but the sudden death very much wasn’t. The owner was an absentee landlord, owned a lot of land in County Clare – you remember where I went to investigate that witch for you? It wasn’t even ten years after that that there was the famine, and our fellow William goes over to crack the whip, evict some tenants, that kind of thing. But he comes back with a young Irish girl. Her family were his tenants, and all of them had starved, so he brought the girl back to England as his ward.”

“Out of the goodness of his heart…”

“One always hopes, but even I rather doubt it,” Aziraphale said with a sigh. “I really _do_ hope that it was a matter of his conscience pricking him-“

“Rather than him pricking her.”

Aziraphale closed his eyes, and finished his glass. “If you insist on putting it like that. Fill me up, would you?”

“I’ll get us another bottle. You happy with white, or do you want to switch to red?”

“Either; the white’s potable.” Aziraphale proved this by finishing another glass by the time Crowley returned. The alarms in his head were beginning to quiet just a little. He could actually imagine eating something now. And Crowley was loud at the bar, chatting and talking about his sunglasses, so he hadn’t been suddenly abducted-

This thought shot through him like a spear, and he leant out of the booth to make sure Crowley was there. Of course, he was, swaggering back with a new bottle. “Don’t fall out.”

“I’m not that drunk yet. Where was I?”

“Rather than lowering his rents he’d brought back a child to diddle.”

“ _Really_ , my dear. … but yes, in any case, whatever was going on she wasn’t happy at all, because a few years later she stabbed him to death. Then hanged herself from the rafters in the attic.”

Aziraphale couldn’t see Crowley’s eyes, but there was satisfaction in every line of him. “ _No._ ”

“Is that spooky enough for you?” Aziraphale said with a fond smile.

“Marvellously so. Well, well, well.”

“Bhuel, bhuel, bhuel,” Aziraphale agreed. He topped up their glasses. “Now you see why I didn’t share _that_ particular tale!”

“She really would think the place was Hexed if you had. Do you know where the girl stabbed him?”

“No! Poor child. She must have been so very alone, even if he never laid a hand on her. Treating her like a stray animal to be taken in as a pet, not a human being laid low by his own greed. And of course the response around here was outrage at her _ingratitude."_

“Do you know where she was buried?”

“No! Dear boy, I don’t mind spooky, but I draw the line at morbid.”

“I was just going to suggest leaving some flowers there.”

Guilt crashed over Aziraphale like a wave. “Oh! Oh. Oh, my dear Crowley – oh, I’m so sorry. Yes. I can look, that’s a lovely idea. Poor dear child…”

“Humpf,” Crowley enunciated, sipping wine with a distinctly aloof mien.

“I _am_ sorry, Crowley.” The wine, drunken far too quickly, had been a grave error; it roiled in his empty stomach, acid burning. “That was thoughtless – unkind-“

“No, hey. Aziraphale. Come on.” Then Crowley did something completely unexpected. He reached across the table, and laced his fingers with Aziraphale’s. With his other hand he removed his sunglasses. Aziraphale felt frozen to the spot, like a rabbit before a snake. “Of course I was being morbid. It was a joke. You know me. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Aziraphale swallowed painfully, and closed his fingers around Crowley’s. “I’m sorry. Nothing. I think I’m a bit…”

“Yeah.” Crowley was studying their entwined hands. “Well. I was a bit … myself, earlier, and you put up with me. If you want, and you find it, we’ll put some flowers there. Least I can do…”

“I’m sure she’s not on the land, the surveyors would have had to tell us…” Aziraphale searched Crowley’s face, and his grip tightened. “Are you all right?”

“Me?” Crowley raised his eyebrows. “I’m _fine_. Are _you_?”

“Oh, yes. Absolutely tip-top.” Crowley pulled his hand back and stretched out his fingers. “Oh, Lord, did I-?”

“No! _Aziraphale_. You’re as wound up as a coiled spring. What’s worrying you?”

“Nothing.” Aziraphale didn’t blink. “Nothing.”


End file.
